Marauding: For Beginners
by hfan2002
Summary: Sequel to Our Founding Fathers 2nd year and Remus Lupin finds that being back at school doesn't mean simply tests and studies. This year brings new lies to his friendship as the foursome tries to unlock the secret around the cult forming in their world. C
1. Attempting to accept

A/N: I don't own any of these characters except for the original ones like Kara Lupin and what not... the rest belong to JKR. I do not mean to cause any problems with her or Bloomsbury Books or even Warner Brothers, by making these stories. They are simply for my own, and any one else who happens to come across them, enjoyment. With that being said I hope you enjoy the new fic. Oh, and just so you know Rowling stated that Remus was a half blood... so I made his mother muggle so anything she is doing in this chapter, work wise, is without aid of magic. I could be wrong on my choice for which of his parents was muggle but I opted to go with his mum because I wanted to and Rowling never specified as to which it really was.  
  
Lesson One: Attempting to Accept What You Believe to be True  
  
Remus walked out of his hall into his room, what would be a very small loft, and looked down out the living room where his father sat reading some new theories on Lycanthropy. Remus sighed heavily as he made his way back through the short hall that led to the stairs. He slowly went down the wooden staircase that creaked slightly under the added weight. Upon hearing the sound of the creaking steps his father instantly looked up from his book and smiled weakly as his son. Remus did nothing to greet the smile with and simply stood at the bottom staircase, knowing exactly what his father was thinking. His father, then, opened his mouth to speak but Remus cut him off. "No Dad, it won't work."  
  
Edmund Lupin just stared at his son, waiting for some kind of an explanation to this statement and when one didn't come he asked the only question that came to his mind. "Why not? It could work." Remus shook his head at his father's beliefs, and walked towards the kitchen with his mind reeling as it had every morning, with the same things, since he had arrived at home a month ago for his summer holiday away from Hogwarts.  
  
There was no hope for him, even if that book was correct. He had read it when his father had first bought it. Making sure that each time he had read it that it was at night when he was absolutely sure that no one could see him doing so. He didn't even really know his motives for this move; only that it had made sense for him to do so at the time. Yet, that was what he had done. And that was why he had known everything that was running through his father's head, for the same thing had gone through his own. He could be normal.  
  
The theories in the book made sense enough, so this new surgery did have a chance of succeeding but then again for Remus, the more he had thought on it, he knew that this disease did not follow theories; it just was what it was. And no one could ever begin to explain it. So ultimately the surgery, running on his own theory, wouldn't ever work so he didn't want to try it at all. He'd been down that road one too many times in his twelve years of life to know, well enough, that he didn't want to go through with something like that again... ever. And this burdened his young mind greatly because he knew his parents only wanted to help him, but in the end, they couldn't, and this fact alone, below the surface of their 'happy' family, tore at the hearts of every member in it.  
  
He opened the kitchen door and sat down at the table located in the small breakfast nook. He turned and stared out the window at the forest located only a few yards away from their home. He noticed immediately the little beams of light that filtered through the intertwining branches, which made the dark eeriness of the twisting trees look almost peaceful in the midst of the shadowy forest.  
  
The clattering of a plate hitting the table drew Remus away from this scene as his mother placed a plateful of bacon and eggs in front of him. He looked up at her and smiled weakly, one of the few smiles he had managed since the end of his term at school. She smiled back at him and took a seat across from him and watched as he sat in obvious thought.  
  
He slowly began to poke at his food, still thinking about the surgery, which then slowly lead his mind to wander onto thoughts on his friends. 'Maybe I should do the surgery. Maybe then they'd like me more.' He thought bitterly as he looked over at Chubs, the families' barn owl that was a wee bit on the runty side. He was sitting on his perch staring at Remus tauntingly with his big yellow eyes as the mail sat but three feet away from him on the counter. Not a single letter was addressed to the young boy.  
  
It'd been almost two weeks since he had received a single letter from his friends. And that one letter that he had received had been from James, who had simply written him to say 'Happy Birthday.' A simple gesture that had made Remus' week until it had begun to dawn on him that the other two of his 'good friends' had either forgotten about his birthday or had chosen to ignore it. The latter was more likely. Remus knew, in the back of his mind, that this exact thing was going to happen to their friendship, sooner or later. His mates were going to desert him, that was inevitable, and when school started up again for a second term he'd be completely and utterly alone. He took a quick bite of his toast as his mind landed on this last thought and found that he was no longer hungry. He then, slowly turned his attention back to the window, looking out at what most would consider a rather dull scene, still thinking bitterly about the upcoming term at Hogwarts and how he was going to deal with not having any friends.  
  
"Remus, dear," Remus looked back at his mother, "are you going to eat that?" He shook his head and pushed the plate away from him over more towards the middle of the table. "What's wrong?"  
  
Remus sighed not wanted to explain his troubles to his parents. They didn't need it, they had enough to deal when it came to him already, and they didn't need anymore. "Nothing." He mumbled and attempted to fake a smile for her sake. She then got up from her seat, grabbed his plate, and kissed her son on his forehead, knowing that when he was ready he would open up and tell them his troubles.  
  
Remus turned yet again and sat looking out the window as his mother went to cleaning the dishes, carefully drying each of them and then setting them in their appropriate place within the cabinet. He sighed deeply as he watched a deer run through the trees and disappeared into the depths of the forest like his thoughts, until there was a loud knock at the front door. He furrowed his brow slightly; they never had any visitors. His mother set the last clean plate down on the counter intending to put it away later, and left the room to go and answer the door because they both knew that his father wouldn't.   
  
He turned his attention back to the window for hopefully what would be the last time as his cousin waltzed into the room. She walked over to the cabinet and put the plate that his mother had set aside away, and then pulled out a bowl for herself and went on to filling it with cereal and milk. She then proceeded to sit down next to him, and loudly gnawed on a bowl of cereal. He instantly put on his best cold shoulder for her and continued to stare out the window, trying his best to concentrate on everything and anything he could other than all the terrible memories that Kara always seemed to remind him of. He looked over at her, unable to hold his concentration with the window scene and mumbled a 'good morning' to the young girl. She just looked at him still eating her disappearing cereal and blinked at him in a bored sort of way. All the while she said nothing back to him.   
  
"Remus." His mother called through the house feebly. Ultimately, saving him from the unbearable silence he and his cousin had fallen into. 


	2. Expect the Unexpected

Lesson Two: Expect the Unexpected  
  
"Remus." He heard his mother call once more as he entered the living room. He looked up from the wooden floor at both of his parents, who were standing in front of the open front door. "I'm here." He muttered.  
  
His mother turned to him and smiled, giving Remus just enough time to see who was standing in the doorway. "Is this one of your friends from school?" His mother asked kindly after she knew her son had gotten a look at the boy who was standing before them. Remus just nodded his head as he looked intently at the figure. His eyes never left the front porch to meet Remus' level stare he just periodically shifted his weight to the other foot.  
  
Upon gazing at him, Remus noticed that the boy's hair was longer than it had been while they were at Hogwarts together. And because of its newly developed length it hung conveniently in front of his eyes, covering the majority of his face. Yet, at the same time, Remus didn't need any aid in telling him that this was Sirius.  
  
Remus' mother, after Remus had confirmed that this was a friend of his, ushered the boy into their house. Shutting the door quietly behind him. Once inside, Sirius took a seat on the couch and mistakenly, in his mind, looked up from the floor at the people he had so kindly interrupted. He smiled weakly at them while he watched as these kind peoples faces went from confusion to utter concern.  
  
"Oh my." Gwen Lupin muttered in shock as her eyes got their first glimpse of the boy's condition.  
  
Remus felt his own mouth drop at his friend's appearance. Sirius' face was as pale as it had ever been. His hair was dirty and slightly hard from the dried blood that had escaped from a large gash on the left side of his head that was hiding beneath the thick layers of his black hair. His right eye was swollen, yet he could still open it, which revealed a deep red color from where the blood vessel inside of it had burst open upon impact with whatever or whoever had done this to him. On Sirius' face and neck there were numerous deep purple and green bruises blatantly on display. Under Remus, Gwen and Edmund's concerned gaze, Sirius just smiled imperceptibly at the family and then turned his own stare down to the wooden floor in shame. He knew he shouldn't have come here.  
  
"What happened?" Remus asked. His voice was full of concern as he took a seat next to Sirius. Sirius looked away from him, unable to look his friend in the eyes and also not really wanting to talk about his problems with him either. His eyes then fell on Remus' mother and he gave a small halfhearted smile to her. "Nothing." He lied as he began to absentmindedly rub his right-arm gently as he started to look around at his new surroundings. Remus stared at his actions, which resembled that of a battered animal, and could tell, as Sirius' robes flattened against his arm, that his arm was clearly broken.  
  
"Edmund; floo the healer." Gwen stated firmly after watching Sirius for a few moments. Her husband asked no questions and walked into his study, shutting the door behind him. Gwen moved to sit next to Sirius. Remus watched intently as she inspected his friend's injuries, carefully mumbling off the names of certain homemade remedies that would help each wound be less painful for him until the healer arrived later that evening. Remus chuckled slightly as Sirius raised his eyebrows at some of the words Gwen uttered, and Remus new that they were completely foreign to his vocabulary. She stopped when she had officially analyzed each of his injuries and then she smiled a warm unfamiliar motherly smile Sirius before she turned to her son. "Hon, could you go and get the First-Aid kit?"  
  
Remus nodded, not wasting any time, got up from the couch, and walked back into the kitchen. When he entered he instantly began his 'ignore Kara' act, which worked quite nicely due to the fact that she was playing the same game with him as she busied herself with making some tea for herself. Remus quickly moved over to the counter and grabbed the First-Aid kit out of the third drawer. Once he had collected the box of muggle healing supplies he folded it under his arm and left the room before Kara had the chance to make a snide comment. When he reentered the living room he found his mother just talking softly with Sirius.  
  
Remus handed his mother the First-Aid kit, which she took from him, and slowly opened it, taking out different jars of herbal remedies and other bottles of things that Remus knew Sirius had never seen before, and then she set them aside on the coffee table. She opened one of the bottles and carefully dabbed some of the clear liquid onto a cotton ball. "This is hydrogen peroxide... it will sting a bit when I do this." She told Sirius softly.  
  
He nodded prepared for what was coming, and then Gwen dabbed the chemical onto the cut on Sirius' head. Sirius whimpered slightly, as the solution made contact with his wound, like a wounded animal. After she was done with that part of the treatment she moved on to the next remedy, after the next, each time she would tell the boy exactly what she was going to do to him.  
  
It was strange for Remus to watch Sirius sit there while his mother helped him with his injuries, like she often did to him after the full moon. All the while, Sirius tried his best to pretend that he was okay with this stranger touching him, caring for him, all things that, as Remus had learned during his first year at school with the young boy, were very foreign to him. Yet, at the same time, the more Remus' mother talked softly to his friend the more Sirius began to open up. When Gwen had reached the worst part of treated Sirius' wounds, setting Sirius' right arm back in place, he had yelled in pain as she did this to him. Yet, afterwards, while Remus' mother was placing a bandage firmly around it, he was ready with a quick joke that even Remus had to laugh at, even after considering what he had recently been through. Then Remus' mother, finding that her job as healer was done for the evening, put all of the bottles back into the box and set the First-Aid kit to the side on top of the coffee table.  
  
Remus barely noticed that his mother had stopped helping Sirius as his mind fixed itself on the last thought that had crossed his mind. "What happened?" He asked finally finding his voice.  
  
Sirius said nothing, fully intending to hoard the memories of what had happened that morning until he died. He turned to Remus and smiled feebly at him hoping that that would be enough for his friend and then he said. "I would have waited to come, but I couldn't. I know the full moon is next week, so I'll leave then, so you don't have to bother with me. I just needed to get away." He said as bluntly as he could, and Remus knew that he was trying to get away from his question.  
  
Remus watched his mother's eyes grow wide at the child's bluntness and then she touched Sirius' arm comfortingly making sure that he knew that he was welcome here. "So that's why you've been so worried." Gwen stated as she looked over Sirius' should over at her son. Remus nodded and put his head down in shame. He'd been completely stupid to have doubted his friend's intentions. This just proved that, Sirius wouldn't have come here if he didn't like him. And he certainly would not have said what he had just said if he didn't respect him. "And you will not be leaving here if you don't want to. We're perfectly used to Remus' condition and I'm sure, since you don't seem to mind it either, you can handle staying here while Remus is sick."  
  
Remus rolled his eyes at his mother's words. He couldn't help it. He looked back at Sirius who smirked openly at Remus' mum's words and nodded his head as if saying that he understood. Remus then got to thinking about Sirius' injuries and again the question came to his mind. How did they get there? He could definitely guess easily enough, but he wasn't sure if he'd be right, and it wasn't healthy for Sirius always to hold his feelings in like a greedy old miser. "What happened?" The question soon left his lips, though, more earnestly this time.  
  
Sirius groaned and stared at Remus and just shrugged his shoulders and turned to stare at the coffee table. When the design that was carved into the top of it grew slightly dull amidst the silence of the room he lifted his gaze and was greeted with the soft grey eyes of Remus' mum, which were full of concern. He looked at her intently and noticed that her whole face read of the same concern that was in her eyes and it was completely unfamiliar to him. A mother cared about what had happened to him. She wasn't just standing on the sidelines chanting, "You deserved it you sorry- " and then went on to fill in the ending with more colorful words that fit the moment. Gwendolyn Lupin actually cared about him.  
  
Remus watched as Sirius' firm, stubborn facial expression grew softer as he looked at Remus' mother and suddenly he saw Sirius open his mouth. "It was my birthday gift." He said bitterly. He looked over at Remus and then went on to explain. "My dad came home yesterday evening. One of the few visits he makes home during the month. He usually just gallivants around town with his tramps and then, suddenly, realizes he has a family back in London and comes home for a week until he gets sick of us." Sirius sighed not sure why he was saying any of this but then continued anyway. "But that's not my point. I don't even really care about his nightly activities; I prefer it when he's gone." He sighed slightly and quickly began to get to his point.  
  
"Anyway, this morning he called up the stairs at five in the morning for me to wake up. Well, I wasn't going to wake up at that time during my holiday. When I didn't come down for whatever it was he wanted, I heard footsteps coming up the stairs and I knew I was in trouble.  
  
"He stormed into my room, threw off my sheets and grabbed me by the hair and proceeded to crack my head against the headboard of my bed. When he was done with that event, he dropped me on the floor. I laid there for a while until I thought he might have left because it had grown terribly quiet. Then I heard his breathing, he was waiting for me to move. Then I made the mistake of playing dead, my hope was that he'd just go away, I was wrong. He had figured out my plan, so he started to choke me until he was sure I couldn't breathe. Then he let me go, as I gasped for breath he punched me once in my eye. I heard him move for the door and I thought that he was going to go away for good this time, and then, suddenly, he picked me up again, carried me out of my room, and threw me down the stairs. I lay in the hall until I heard him head for the kitchen."  
  
Remus stared at Sirius, who was always the strong one, as he spoke. His voice never wavered with the hint of tears, and no tears ever even fell from his eyes during his tale. It was just simply an unfortunate event in his short-lived life, nothing more, and nothing less. How could he live like that? Remus couldn't even try to comprehend it. Granted he didn't have the best of lives himself, but at least he knew that he was loved. Even Kara loved him, despite the way she treated him, and he treated her back, they loved each other. Sirius had never even had the chance to even witness anything like that, ever. The closest thing that Remus could think of that Sirius could try to compare to having a loving family of his own was James'. Remus looked at Sirius, who just smiled at him, knowing what his friend was thinking about and simply in return shrugged his concern away. "It's nothing new. I'm used to it."  
  
Remus shook his head at Sirius' words and opened his mouth to reply but his mother cut him off with the same words he himself had planned to say. "No one should be used to that, hon." She said softly as she gently placed her hand on Sirius' bruised cheek. She smiled faintly at the young boy. "Now go wash up. Take a long shower or bath, anything you like, the bathroom's down the hall, second door to the left."  
  
Sirius chuckled slightly to himself, in slight shock of the hospitality he had found in this house. He then got up and disappeared down the hall, moments later they heard the sound of running water filtering down the hallway. Remus looked up at his mother. "You're not going to send him home, are you?"  
  
"No, I wouldn't risk it." She stated firmly, and Remus instantly knew that she was found of his friend. Then she added as an afterthought as if to confirm his suspicions, "He's a remarkable boy, and I'm glad he's your friend. Now go busy yourself with something, I have to talk with your father."  
  
Remus nodded and wandered up to his loft and began to set up another bed for Sirius. He was fully content with the idea that Sirius would be staying with them. He could hear his parents discussing how they were going to deal with the full moon's festivities and try to manage a guest at the same time. His father, ever the sensible one kept posing hypothetical questions with what could happen to Sirius psyche if he stayed, all of which his mother barreled through with a reasonable answer, that blew holes into her husband's theories. Remus laughed slightly at their petty bickering. He knew and understood all of their concerns all too well, but this time he was willing to set them aside. 


	3. Know Your Surroundings

Lesson Three: Know Your Surroundings  
  
Remus sat picking out the rhythm to the "Blackbird" on his guitar, as he slowly sang the lyrics to himself. When Sirius came into his loft of a room from his shower he just smiled awkwardly at Remus while Remus continued to play his favorite song by the Beatles. Remus continued quirkily, with his finger picking out the familiar beats, as his mind reeled about what he could do with this friend now that Sirius was waiting patiently for him to pay attention to him. When the song had reached its final chord the sound it made was left to linger over the little loft. Finally, Sirius spoke up, clearly trying to get away from the obvious awkwardness that both boys had suddenly fallen into during the few seconds it took for the room to fall into a complete silence.  
  
"Your mum is really nice." He offered lamely into the noiseless void.  
  
"I know." Remus muttered, instantly trying to cling to any form of 'easy' conversation, as most tend to dub it when they are in such a predicament as he was now. He stood up and put his guitar back into its case and stowed it carefully underneath his bed. Once he was sure that it was safe he stood up straight and just looked at Sirius. He quickly ran his fingers through his short-cropped hair that fell slightly in his eyes and chuckled uneasily amidst the silence. As much as he loved Sirius, he did not know exactly how to deal with having a friend over at his house. This was actually a first for him. Well, at least since he and his family had been run out of the small wizarding community when he was eight. He sighed deeply, as that painful memory came back into his mind, and soon he found himself pacing back and forth in the small isle between the wall and his bed, as he wandered deeper and deeper into his own thoughts. All the while, Sirius eyed him nervously.   
  
Not only did Remus never have a friend over to visit him before, but he also, because of this last fact, was entirely used to being by himself; alone. Whether that meant him reading a good book or playing his guitar. All of which, Sirius would surely frown upon as possible things to do. After all, it was their summer holiday. Therefore, Remus did not have any clue as to what he could do with Sirius' being there.  
  
He could feel Sirius' eyes on him as they followed his movements around his room. Finally, he stopped and turned to Sirius slowly. He looked at Sirius closely, examining him as he stared, evenly, back at him. He was still battered and bruised from head to toe, but now, at the very least, he was clean. That was aside from his dirty robes that he had been wearing when he had arrived. Eventually, as he looked his friend over while he still thought over all of assorted activities he could do with Sirius for the duration of his stay, he noticed that his arm was no longer confined within the temporary cast his mother had put it in. "My dad fix that for you?" Remus asked curiously as he gestured to his friends previously injured arm with a casual wave of his left hand.  
  
Sirius nodded his head and chuckled slightly as he remembered Mr. Lupin's reaction to the feeble cast. "He said it was dumb. Well, not in those words but, pretty much, that's what he implied. Your mother just hit him on the shoulder." He added unnecessarily as if this observation were an odd yet absolutely beautiful thing to his young eyes. He continued before Remus could make any form of a comment. "Then he fixed my arm." He sighed deeply and was silent for a while before he spoke again. "I wish my family was like that." He ended bitterly, unable to keep the previously blissful picture in his mind as the memories of how his own family treated each other quickly took up those thoughts, much like a disease.  
  
Remus smiled weakly at Sirius. His father often did simple things like that to pick on his mother. It was just his odd sense of humor that occasionally came out. The one thing that his mother always stated is what made her fall in love with him in the first place, and also one of the many factors that had aided her in talking herself into marrying him six months later, a rarity in many ways. Remus though said nothing of this because he was absolutely certain that Sirius had no such joyous stories to tell about his parents. So after awhile of Remus thinking on these things, he resigned the conversation with a simple "yeah," for it was all that he could manage to say to Sirius' comment in the end. He didn't know how to react to his friend's family issues because he only knew what had been said an hour earlier... nothing less and nothing more, he could only assume, and sometimes that was not a good thing to do. He sighed deeply, and finally pushed those thoughts out of his head and put his mind back on what he was going to do with Sirius to show him a good time.  
  
He then began to run assorted ideas back and forth through the endless caverns hidden within his skull and finally he smiled widely at Sirius. This was the same smile that James always used when he had thought that he had come up with something extremely clever. He then, without saying a word, walked over to his dresser and pulled out a set of muggle summer clothing and tossed them at Sirius. Sirius caught them with great ease and just cocked an eyebrow up at him. "Put them on. I want to show you something."  
  
Sirius just shrugged his shoulders and did as he was told. Once he was fully clothed in the muggle attire, an outfit that his family would surly frown upon, he followed Remus out of the house.  
  
"I'm going on a walk with Sirius." Remus yelled out at his mum as they had left the front steps. Shortly after they received an "alright" back through the kitchen window, once they had reached the yard. Soon after Remus lead Sirius too the dark woods only a few yards away from the front door of his home.  
  
Remus pushed along the familiar trails, occasionally, he would look back only to make sure that he hadn't lost Sirius somewhere behind him. After they had gone quite a way into the abyss of the forest Remus began to venture off of the path that had been beaten there by the few people that had walked there before him. Slowly but surely this path began to disappear and eventually he reached the route he had been looking for. He jumped down into an eight-foot deep trench that had been dug out by erosion. Eventually, he followed it until it lead to a clearing where only a large field laid with its rolling hills set out in all of its possible glory. Remus stopped to look at the scene that never failed to awe him, he sighed deeply taking in the fresh air of the countryside. He then turned to look back at Sirius, who was standing behind him openly gaping at the beauty of the countryside.  
  
"This is so much cooler than London." Sirius announced as he walked towards Remus and stopped when he was standing only a foot behind him. Remus only laughed at his friends expressed approval. It was nice to know that he appreciated it.  
  
"I have to agree. I love it here, it's peaceful; comforting." He said calmly. He took a short while to gather his thoughts and then he turned back to Sirius and smiled that half smile of his that meant that he was up to no good. "But this isn't what I wanted to show you."  
  
Remus then started to walk off towards the rest of the woods on the other end of the field. Sirius followed quietly behind him, trusting wholly that Remus knew where he was going. After walking only a few yards into these new surroundings Remus stopped by a secluded willow and smiled back at Sirius who was still lagging behind him. Before him was a little lake and a small pier that Remus told Sirius that he and his dad used mostly for fishing, an addiction that Remus' mother had allowed the both of them to get a hold of. Remus then went and pulled on a rope that was hanging off of the willow making sure that it was sturdy enough. Once he was satisfied that it would hold both of the boys' weight for the next hour or so he took off his shirt, exposing old wounds that his lycanthropy had given him. With one last smile at Sirius, Remus took the rope in both of his hands and gripped firmly as he ran and jumped over the lake. The rope swung out over the water and then he let go and dropped, causing a violent splash, back into the cold water.  
  
Once he had come up from the depths of the lake he turned in the direction and shouted for Sirius to give it a go. Sirius just smiled mischievously, finding that what Remus had just done looked like great fun. Then, not having to be told twice, he took the rope in both of his hands and flung himself out over the lake and promptly let go when he knew the rope had reached its highest elevation and landed in the water less than gracefully. The waves from Sirius' fall splashed over Remus' bobbing head that was just barely managing to keep above the water as the waves crashed over him. When Sirius came up from his journey to the bottom of the lake, both of the boys instantly fell into a fit of laughter.  
  
"My mum's going to kill me. She hates it when I go swimming with open cuts. She's afraid I'll die of an infection or something. So it's safe to assume that she'll think the same with you." He then laughed a bit more at Sirius' shocked face at the idea that someone would actually care about his wellbeing. When Sirius had recovered from this revelation Remus continued. "So, you'll probably get the peroxide treatment again." He paused a bit as he tried to read the blank expression that had made its way onto Sirius' face. When he found that he couldn't decipher the look he was receiving, he continued on unsurely. "I always find that it's worth it." He said bluntly. He shrugged his shoulders quickly and then dived under the water and swam over to the pier and pulled himself up out of the cold water.  
  
Sirius followed him, and as Remus grabbed for the rope that was tied around the willow, Sirius said with a large smile, "This is well worth it." Remus grinned widely and laughed once more at his friend. Then, using the rope, he jumped back into the lake. When he came back up from the depths, Sirius already had the rope in his hand and was preparing to jump. Suddenly, he let his stance down for a moment and yelled as an afterthought to his previous comment. "Although, it did really sting." Then he too went back into his stance, and swung himself into the lake. Remus only chuckled as the boy fell into the water with a wild battle cry.  
  
And so it went for the remainder of that afternoon. They spent the majority of the day in that lake until they eventually, like most twelve year old boys do, got bored with their activities there. After they were done with the lake Remus opted to show Sirius the best parts of the woods, figuring that if he had been impressed with the field then he would love the rest of it. Sirius gladly agreed with his plan and they quickly walked off away from the lake, leaving it in a peaceful silence behind them.  
  
Remus proceeded to show him every corner of the Lupin's many acres of land. Showing him all of the best hideaways it had to offer. Among these spots included a large rock formation, located in the eastern part of their woods, that they climbed earnestly all the way to the top. Though, that was only after Remus had warned Sirius about the snakes that liked to hide in the cracks and crevasses of the rocks. Even though the warning had been a bit of a shock to Sirius, it only appeared to make his friend even more determined to do it. When they had finally reached the top of the rocks. The view from the top of it overlooked the trees and hills that were made even more beautiful by the higher elevation. They had stood over the view, each lost in their own worlds, until Remus finally drew Sirius away from the enriched scene. Remus then led him down the other side of the rock formation and headed on towards a deer trail that only a few yards away from the rock. While they walked down this they saw assorted markings that as Remus informed Sirius, meant that it had been used recently, so Remus continued to follow it hoping that they might run into an animal of some sort. They followed the path beaten by the deer and, eventually, Remus had the chance to point out where a deer had actually chosen to lay down for the night only a little ways off of the trail. This revelation led to the boys' contemplation over how big this stag (if that was, indeed, what it was) had been. They followed that trail until the sun began to set over the horizon, painting the sky brilliant oranges and pinks, and made the woods gradually more and more dark. After it began to get too dark for the two to feel comfortable in they resigned for the evening after much ado, and quickly made their way back to the Lupin's small house, which, as Remus had informed him when they had reached the back yard of the house, the family had dubbed "Lupin Lodge."  
  
As they headed back they moved at a much slower pace than when they had run through the woods early that day. Remus busied himself by telling Sirius tales of all the assorted magical creatures he had sometimes had the chance of seeing in the forest. Sirius had clung onto his every word desperately wanting to believe the stories he was being fed. This was partially do to his overall interest in such beings as the ones Remus spoke of, all of which could definitely be seen in such a forest as this, and also the fact that he doubted if Remus would openly lie to him now that he knew his one big secret.  
  
When they entered Lupin Lodge, Remus' mother was waiting patiently for them in the living room. When she saw her first look at the two boys' appearance, dirty clothes and bodies, she openly proceeded to scold her son. "Remus Jonathan Lupin." She said strictly. "You know better than to go out there with open cuts." She sighed deeply and smirked a bit despite herself. Boys would always be boys. She then continued with her rant half- heartedly. "Granted, they're not yours but you shouldn't jeopardize your friend's health either." She smiled a bit at Sirius and subsequently led them to the bathroom and quickly instructed them to clean themselves up.  
  
They did as they were told, and once she had left the room they openly laughed at the expected scolding. When they were had finished scrubbing themselves and getting new clean clothes on, they were allowed to eat the dinner that was waiting for them on the kitchen table, a meal which they had missed while they had been out gallivanting through the woods. After they had finished with their re-warmed meal, they wandered back into the living room, where they spent the duration of their evening.  
  
Remus smiled and laughed as he watched intently as Sirius spent the evening getting acquainted with his family members. This, unfortunately also included a small row between him and Kara who openly disagreed with the boys view on a particular dark beast that Remus had later forgotten the name of and its relevance to the evening at all. And once Gwen had reprimanded Kara for her behavior they went back to their getting to know the boy too. Not only did it help them to get to know what kind of children their son had befriended while at school, but it also kept the boys mind off of what Remus' healer, Mr. Genezer, was doing. This was always a good thing, as Remus knew all too well, when it came to mending bruises.  
  
When the healer had finished his work, Sirius thanked him dramatically calling for laughter from everyone in the room. The Healer smiled at him and then bid the family a short fair well until next week when he was expected to be back again. When he had left Gwen quickly instructed the children to head up to bed. They followed her order and Sirius watched as Remus and Kara collected goodnight kisses from both of Remus' parents. He smirked at the scene that he was not used to at all, and then he followed Remus up to the room he would be sharing with Remus. When they had reached the loft he quickly slipped into the small cot that had been set up for him and Remus slipped into his own bed. The two of them stayed up well in to the night quietly talking to one another about assorted nonsense and tall tales that they made up on the spot until they slowly slipped off into a deep slumber. 


	4. Gallows Humor

Lesson Four: Gallows Humor  
  
The next few days the boys spent their time much in the same way as they had their first day together at Lupin Lodge. Their days consisted of gallivanting through the woods, playing games, and of treasure hunting and fighting gigantic beasts that were familiar to them in their world. Remus, one day towards the middle of the week, even opted to teach Sirius how to fish... a challenge in itself, but once he had gotten the hang of it he had found that it was actually rather enjoyable. At night they would sit up late into the night having in-depth conversations ranging from anything about their last year at school, to why a fart shows that God has a sense of humor.  
  
During these late night discussions Remus found out a few of the reasons why his friends had neglected to write him as often as he had wanted them to. Unfortunately, no one had heard from Peter yet and Sirius had just assumed that he was with his family. Something they had all found out, after last Christmas, that he was rather comfortable with. Even though Peter became the mystery to which neither of them had any answers to, Sirius did have much to say about James' condition from the last few letters he had received from his mate. Apparently, as it turned out, James was busying himself in Washington DC because his father was doing business with the Secretary of Magic. James, though, did not seem too pleased with his new surroundings as he told, in his last letter to Sirius, that everyone dressed very professionally, both muggle and non, and they were all straight faced and serious. "It's a nightmare, honestly... but they do have a cool joke shop." He had stated openly concerning the difference between the UK and America's wizarding worlds.   
  
Remus had laughed at this, oh the terrible tragedies of being the Minister of Magic's son! This was a fact that Remus had not even connected with James until sometime in the middle of last term. He had felt rather odd about not realizing this sooner, so he had never said anything about it to his friends. It was just another thing Remus could chalk up and blame on his lycanthropy which, more than not, left him out of the loop when regarding such things as that.  
  
Aside from these long late night debates between the two boys were also the short-lived expeditions in the woods by day. Sirius and Remus had gone out the first few days exploring a different section of the Lupin's land each day. They would only come back to the house for meals where Gwen always had something nice prepared for them whether that was sandwiches or a full course meal at dinner. Eventually, though, after the third day Kara began to complain openly about being left alone in the house with only her aunt for company. In the end, her nagging had gotten to Remus, as it always did, and he had let her come along. Surprisingly enough, she provided a vivid storyline to go along with their explorations of the woods. These stories included hunting wild hippogriffs, which Remus knew was a very unlikely thing to do but it did make for good fun. Or another story she'd created was that they would go searching high and low for beings most people either do not, or cannot see in the wild, like Thestrals. By the end of that first day with her, both boys, who had both protested openly her hanging out with them, had concluded that she wasn't entirely worthless. In fact she was rather bright and cool to spend time with. All of these things Remus had known before, but he despised her for them just as much as he loved her for them. For these qualities, tagged along with her ability to get to him with her nagging, were the reasons that by the end of the week Remus' health had begun to deteriorate in the wake of the full moon.  
  
On the last day of that week Remus had stayed inside as he slowly began to grow a fever, eventually, he began to sweat and grow pale as the day dragged on. Remus was thankful that Sirius had not abandoned him during this time, so that he could go and play with Kara, who had left the house as soon as Remus had come down the stairs that morning. He was not mad at her for that action, though, because it was the only way she ever showed any pity for his condition. He knew deep down, that she had left because she felt horrible about the events that were to follow that evening. She knew as well as he did, that it was her fault and he could not bring himself to hate her while she was suffering over him.  
  
Sirius though, did not agree with Remus' view on his cousin's behavior. He thought it was not only rude but also unkind. As he had put it, it was a very "Black" thing of her to do. Remus had tried to explain to him why it was not an unkind thing for her to do, but a very nice thing, because he did not want to see her pity. He didn't know how he would react to it at all. Sirius had only sighed at this and made a quick joke, a gallows humor that seemed to sum up Remus' life up until that moment in time.  
  
This was the system for the rest of the day until Edmund Lupin came home from work a little after five and looked at his son with soft caring eyes. Remus smiled weakly at his father, knowing what was coming, and he hoisted himself up from the couch so that he was now sitting upright. The effort of this simple motion sent pain searing down his spine as sweat trickled down his forehead. He felt as if he were either going to faint or die, whatever happened to come first, under the pressure of his above normal fever. Sirius had patted Remus gently on his back while he waited for the little black dots to stop flickering before his eyes. When they had stopped he got up off of the couch, knowing fully what now needed to be done.  
  
Both Sirius and Remus' father had helped him up from his position on the couch and slowly but surely they made their way out to the shed. Before the three of them had made it outside, Remus' mother had kissed him softly on his forehead with tears clinging in her soft gray eyes. Remus' eyes had become moist when he'd seen his mother's tear- stained face but quickly feigned that he was alright, and gently kissed her on her cheek. Then they slowly continued the gallant death march to the shed. When they had reached halfway, a walk that takes nearly a minute had already exceeded that time limit, he noticed a little grey owl swoop down from its' perch on the shed, and he immediately noticed that it belonged to James. The little bird flew down upon his shoulder and Remus took the time to retrieve the letter from the little beings leg. He opened the rolled piece of parchment and slowly read the few words that had been written on it. "I love you, mate." Had been laid out before him in the unruly handwriting that was James' signature scrawl. And immediately Remus felt hot tears roll down his cheeks as he stared at the words written. He wiped them away quickly before Sirius could make any form of a comment, even though, deep down, he knew no such comment would be made. His father just patted him on his back just before he walked over to the shed and opened the heavy wooden door and stepped inside, leaving the door open. Remus stopped leaning against Sirius, and made the remainder of the journey to the shed by himself. He stepped inside of the shed and gave Sirius a quick glance telling his best friend, at that moment, that he did not want him to see this. Sirius nodded slightly understanding his friend's needs, withdrew the one step he had taken towards the shed, and stayed outside of the shed as the door swung shut with a large 'thud,' leaving Remus in the dark shack.  
  
Remus turned to face his father as the man grabbed one of the large chains hanging up on the wall, along with assorted others, all of different makes and designs. Remus moved over to the corner where there were assorted clasps hanging on the wall. His father then, chained him to the wall. This was the only time Remus ever saw his father cry. Every month since he was five they had done this routine, and every month it grew no easier for the young boy to see these particular tears. Remus felt a fresh wave of tears, as his father finished up his futile attempts to chain his son, and looked up into his blue eyes. As the first few tears fell from Remus' eyes he found himself mutter. "It's okay, I'll be alright." His voice cracked under the weight of these words. His father only sobbed openly when Remus had said this, and then finally hugged Remus, chains and all, and then resigned himself from the shed.  
  
Remus was then left alone. The dark shed was his haven and the chains that were meant to protect him from himself became his only comfort for the night. The sun set behind the trees slowly, as it always did on these nights as he awaited his imminent fate. When darkness finally fell over the quiet countryside the pain of the transformation began to grip his body. His brow began to sweat profusely and he felt his bones begin to mold into another being much unlike himself. The pain this caused was unbearable, and on a good night he would pass out; this was not a good night.  
  
Remus screamed in pain as his body changed form and his consciousness mind began to leave. As his back was forced to hunch over in the chains Remus gripped the note from James that was still in his hands and he began to cry openly wishing that this pain could be passed onto someone else. As the hair began to grow and his face began to contort into a muzzle he gave one final cry for his mother as it died into the sounds of a howl.  
  
Once all the hair had grown and his appearance was no longer human, the former Remus J. Lupin began to bite and gnaw at the chains that bound him. After much determination the clasps against the wall were ripped off of the ancient wood they were attached to and the chains fell to the floor. The beast was loose. Frustrated by its confines it began to claw at the door with its razor sharp claws. It knew there were people out there. Yet, the door was too strong and the werewolf's body was too weak, in its' young age, to break through, so it opted to take its frustration out on itself.  
  
Attacking the human within.  
  
Every bite or scratch caused immense pain in the monster, yet it would not stop, as each swipe caused a whimper to escape from its muzzle. Then, finally, after most of the flesh had been destroyed and the pain had become too great, Remus J. Lupin's traitorous body was merciful and passed out.

* * *

Inside the house, merely yards away from the shed, they heard Remus' transformation. The family sat in the confines of the small cabin as the fireplace cracked as the bark was consumed by the blistering flames. Every member of the house sat in silence and listened to all of Remus' cries of pain and pleads for comfort from the outside world. Until, finally, the cries ceased to sound human at all.  
  
Sirius watched each person he had grown very close to over the last week sit in silence. He did not speak or crack a joke to ease the silence knowing that it would fall upon deaf ears, and not only that but it was a most unwelcome gesture to anyone there including himself. He sighed deeply as he intently watched Gwen, the loving mother that she was, begin to cry again before she muttered a prayer for her son into the berth of the room and retired to her room still crying silently. Shortly after she had left, Edmund followed her into their bedroom and Sirius could hear him comforting his wife to the best of his abilities; the soft sounds of his voice cooing gently at his wife until her cries became no longer audible. Eventually, after the sounds had died within the master bedroom, Sirius' attention dwindled and finally was brought to the youngest member of the Lupin family.  
  
He could still hear Remus in the outer regions of his mind, and now from the sound of it, he appeared to be beating up against the door. Sirius felt the sting of tears in his eyes, that he was too stubborn to let fall, even for his friend. But, in the end, he failed at that task and slowly a tear escaped from his eyes as one final 'thud' resounded from the shack and then all was silent for the time being. He heard Kara laugh slightly from beside him, and he turned to her and wiped the fallen tear away from his face. She did not move from her position in the chair next to him, as he stared blankly at her unable to understand her sudden outburst as the sounds of an injured animal began to seep through the doors tainting the eerie silence that had settled over the house. All the while the girl just continued to jot things down in her little black notebook, as if she had made no sound at all.  
  
"You're cruel." Sirius muttered unable to hold his thoughts inside. Kara just looked up at him and blinked a bit, before she finally opened her mouth to retort.  
  
"Cruel. I'm hardly cruel. You don't know what we've been through so you can't judge me."  
  
"You laughed." Sirius said blankly, finding that to be a fairly strange response.  
  
"Because it's funny. Every month he rips himself apart, along with all of us crying over him in our own ways." She said with an emphasis on the last few words she spoke. Kara sighed and shut her little book, her eyes were now sad and her face had gone all pouty. "I've already done my bit of crying for today and I'm tired of being sad." She took a deep breath and looked away from Sirius as she continued her rant unnecessarily. "I don't want him to hate me, but he does, and I don't blame him. But to say I'm cruel is pushing the line, Black. You don't know me, so bugger off." With that final bit, she bounded out of the room and Sirius was sure that she might have been crying as she retreated down the hallway to her own bedroom. Sirius simply turned away from the direction she had left in and looked dismally at the dancing flames as the werewolf outside gave out an ear-piercing cry and then everything fell into complete silence.  
  
Now that he was alone he felt himself cry openly over his friend and his family. Kara was right, he did not know anything about their family but it was the way she had said it that had made him think that perhaps, the reason she was living with the Lupin's was something beyond anyone's control. A tragedy to add to the families suffering and a cause for her to retaliate like an injured animal to his simple observation. He knew the reaction all too well, he'd done it himself on some occasions, as rare as they were, but his victim was typically James.  
  
He sighed bitterly and wiped the tears away from his eyes taking the time to stare at the shack in the distance hoping for some sign of life within it. He soon found that there was nothing of the sort. He then went up to Remus' room to sleep for the night. He noticed instantly, that it seemed so big and empty without his friend, and as he climbed into the cot that had been his bed for the last week, he hoped beyond all hope that Remus would be okay and that the rest of the family would recover as well.


	5. The Unexpected Art of Pranks

Lesson Five: The Unexpected Art of Pranks

The healer arrived early the next morning, and even with his charms and potions it still took Remus a good week to recover fully. During his time of healing Remus was thankful for Sirius, both being there for him and yet at the same time being able to keep his distance when Remus had preferred to be alone. An odd thing for anyone to do when someone they loved was sick. The rest of his family was just as supportive, as they always were. His mother constantly worried over possible infections and his father brought him home books to read after he had stopped at Flourish and Blott's after he had worked a double shift at the Ministry all that week because there was a mild crisis in the Department of Mysteries that had needed his area of expertise (astronomy) to aid in deciphering a new prophecy. This was a job Remus knew all too well that his father despised. Edmund firmly believed that Divination and Arithmacy were a waste of ones time because they were proved to be wrong every day. This was also something he had made clear, yet again, everyday that week over dinner. Both Sirius and Remus found it quite funny how someone could get so worked up over something so pointless. That fact, combined with the derogatory jokes Edmund would tell over late night meals, eventually left the family both laughing and mocking the industry all at the same time.

Eventually, though, Remus' wounds did heal completely and he bounced back just as well as any other twelve-year-old boy. He was back to his usual activities by the first week of that new month, playing with Sirius and Kara, who had continued on the following day of his Lycanthropic adventures as if nothing had ever even happened between them, in the woods and at the fishing hole. They spent the rest of that month much as they had their first week with Sirius at Lupin Lodge, until finally their Hogwarts letters arrived with the new lists of school supplies for both Remus and Sirius. Along with the boys' letters came Kara's acceptance letter, where everyone, even Remus and Sirius, took the time to congratulate her for.

As they finished up with their breakfast they told Kara about most of the things they had done during their first year, conveniently leaving out some of the more colorful bits that involved Snape. Whom they took the time to inform Kara that: "He's a foul kid with greasy hair and no brain of his own," as Sirius had stated. Kara had laughed at the disgusted look Sirius had on his face as he told her about this particular boy. But after he had described him, he quickly changed the subject before the mere thought of Severus Snape lead him into a huge venting that he would no sooner be able to get rid of. Remus only chuckled to himself as Sirius spoke so dismally of their archenemy. He still didn't fully agree with everything that had gone on between the four boys and Snape but he also understood that worse things were also inevitable now. They had ruined any chance of a truce between themselves and Snape when they had embarrassed the boy in front of the whole school during Halloween. This one action had proved to be fatal in trying any further attempts at civil behavior that could have been made between the five of them. And now they were to be left to reap whatever they had happened to sow with the events that had followed that first ultimate prank.

Remus' attention was brought away from these particular thoughts as his mother asked him whether or not he and Sirius wanted to go to Diagon Alley with her to collect their supplies. It took Remus a moment to comprehend what she had asked him and once it had finally processed, he merely glanced over at Sirius who shook his head slightly. Then he kindly declined his mother's offer. Gwen accepted this, and a few minutes later she and Kara left to collect the extra things that the children would need for school. Soon after they had left, Remus and Sirius ran off into the woods to enjoy one of the last days they would spend together outside without Kara's interference.

They spent that day fishing upon Sirius' request and they only went back to Lupin Lodge when the sun had just begun to set. When they were inside the comforts of the house they noticed the pile of textbooks that were sitting on the coffee table for the both of them to take up to Remus' room for safekeeping. After dinner, though, they, instead of putting them away, occupied their time by leafing through the pages of the new textbooks. During this absent minded searching they would occasionally tell each other the things they thought would be cool to learn or when they had reached the end of the textbooks they would state how difficult and tedious some of the things they were supposed to learn were gradually getting. They also stopped, intermittently, and pointed out the coolest spells and potions in Kara's books, which were mostly hand-me-downs from Remus, as they told her why they thought they were the best. Even though they got a bit rowdy when it came to discussing a few of the smaller pranks they had done with these particular spells that they had pointed out to her, she still appreciated their friendly gestures just the same. Eventually, Gwen sent them up to bed and instructed Kara to put her cauldron and new robes in her closet until the end of the week when they would be leaving for school. After much delay from all of the children, they did go to bed.

The rest of that week they spent outside, and inside, running around and enjoying the last few days they had of their summer holiday. On August 31, the Lupin family rose early with much protest from the kids and packed up the car with their trunks. Sirius had thought this to be very odd because they could just as easily floo and it would be less work for everyone and not to mention less time-consuming. When he had said this Remus had heaved a huge sigh and re-explained the obvious to his friend while Kara rolled her eyes at Sirius' stupidity. Remus glared at her and continued on with his explanation stating that his mother was Muggle, therefore if she wanted to see him off at the station they would have to drive there, which lead to Remus spelling out unnecessarily that it would be a very boring trip. After the car had been packed they went back inside and had the breakfast that Gwen had made for them. They ate in relative silence and when all the plates were cleared of food the kids began to talk of all the things they were going to do when they were back at school, while Gwen and Edmund listened carefully to what they were saying. Finally, they had to clear the table and then they went out and piled into the car and headed out for the evening.

During the extensive trip to London, Sirius inquired Remus about the things Remus had taken for granted and ultimately could not answer. Like how Remus' mother was even allowed onto platform 9 ¾ if she was a muggle. Remus had stuttered and stumbled over that one until he finally told his friend that he didn't know. While he had stumbled over that particular question, he contemplated whether or not he should ask his father what the answer was, but, in the end, he opted not to because his father rather disliked being bothered on long trips like this.

When they arrived in London it was late afternoon. His father parked the car in a lot down a little bit from the ministry and the small unsuspecting family made their way down to Diagon Alley, leaving their trunks in the car for Edmund to take back to them at a later time. They checked into the Leaky Cauldron and with the remaining sunlight the boys begged Remus' mother to let them go look at the shops but she refused to let them go. They would be having a very hectic day tomorrow and she wanted some rest for herself without having to worry about what they were getting into outside of the Leaky Cauldron if they were to go. Remus knew this, but like with every parent her excuse was that 'they' needed some rest and relaxation before their journey to Hogwarts the next day. So rather than spending their afternoon exploring the assorted stores of Diagon Alley, Remus and Sirius spent their time in the confines of the inn talking energetically with Tom the innkeeper. In the parlor, they enjoyed a hot meal with all of the Lupin's and a few of the other guests and when it came time that the boys had actually begun to get tired they finally retired to their separate room where they dozed off rather quickly into a deep slumber.

There was a soft tap on the door and Remus groaned loudly as his mother's voice filtered in through the thick wood informing him to get up because they would be leaving for the station soon. He rolled over on his side and looked at the clock hanging on the wall and found that it was eleven o' clock. He groaned slightly as he heard Sirius' bed creak under his weight as he rolled over in his bed. Remus, rather than getting out of bed straight away, stared at the clock for a bit and eventually noticed that between the twelve and the one there were only three minutes and then between the eleven and the twelve there were seven minutes to make up for the previously missed two. After he watched this cycle for a while, he eventually found that it annoyed him greatly so he got up out of the comfortable bed and walked over to Sirius. He stood over the lump of sheets that was his friend until a smile began to play at the corners of his lips. He then quickly ripped the covers away. Even though it was a warm day the absence of the sheets and body heat had its effect on the possum-ing Sirius as he bolted upright in his bed and glared openly at his friend. 

"That wasn't nice!"

Remus just grinned and then shrugged his shoulders at him. "Yeah, well, we should be getting downstairs. Probably with our things too."

Sirius gave one last groan as he stretched his arms out and cracked his neck to ease the tension that had grown there throughout the night. Then the boys slowly went to putting their clothes on and slowly made their way down the stairs, clumsily carrying their heavy trunks behind them. When they reached the parlor they noticed Remus' family sitting having a quick lunch. They joined them gladly and half-listened to Kara ramble on anxiously about the upcoming term.

When eleven twenty-five rolled around Edmund Lupin left the rest of the family to collect the car. Gwen instructed the children to wait in the parlor while she watched for her husband's arrival with the car. When he came back, nearly ten minutes later, Gwen quickly went and got the children and they piled their things back inside the trunk of the car and headed off to King's Cross.

They arrived at King's Cross and practically ran onto the platform. The platform itself, though, was busy enough when they had finally gotten on it. Instantly, Remus and Sirius went to look for their other friends but unfortunately they couldn't find them. When they had rejoined Remus' parents Edmund helped them find a compartment and set their belongings inside. Once they were tucked away safely the boys went off of the train and continued to stand with Gwen and Edmund. They stood there for a while before they heard a squeal of excitement and Sirius was almost pushed to the ground by the weight of James' body jumping on his back. This certain display of affection slightly shocked Remus' parents who eyed the Ambassador of Magic's son with a mix of confusion and shock.

"You miss me?" James asked in a teasing manner as he let go of Sirius neck and quickly fell into a fit of laughter as he dropped to the ground once more.

"Always, mate. Always." Sirius replied as he too fell into a fit of giggles. When they had finally come out of their stupor James smiled at Remus. "How have you been?" He asked sincerely. Remus just smiled at him and patted him on his back. "Just fine actually, but then again in three weeks I doubt if I'll be able to say the same."

James nodded his head, not knowing what to say so he just hugged his friend as tightly as he could, without hurting him too much. When he finally let go of him, Remus looked around, somewhat uncomfortably, as he realized that his family had seen that open display of friendship. Kara stifled a laugh and Remus glared at her and then he introduced James to each of them. When they had finished with the pleasantries the train whistle resounded around them. Gwen gave her son one last hug and kiss before they walked away to board the train. As they went to leave Remus' parents sides, she gave out the last few motherly warnings: "Don't get into too much trouble, watch out for your cousin, and remember to have fun." Remus just rolled his eyes at her as he turned back around and went to hug his father goodbye as the train let out its last warning blast and then the boys ran off to board the train with Kara barely managing to keep up with their much larger strides.

They lead themselves down to the compartment where they had set their belongings a few minutes earlier and quickly took their seats just as the train began to set off. It was only a few minutes later that Peter joined them. They spent the first hour catching up discussing their summer breaks. As both Remus and Sirius had assumed Peter had spent all of his time with his family. Some of the tales that he told were worthwhile but mostly they were just typical stories you would hear with any other family. So when his stories began to fall upon deaf ears he gave up and settled into listening to the others' stories.

Remus and Sirius explained their summer and then finally James got his chance. He started by dumping out the contents of a large bag out onto the table and he began to smile madly at his friends who just stared at the contents open mouthed. "Told you they had a good joke shop." James said with a smirk. "Those are gumballs that if a person eats them they lose their voice and can only make animal sounds. Er... the wands malfunction and cast whatever spell the person said back on them. Those little beady things act a lot like dung bombs but I think they last longer." He sighed deeply. "There's more but we can find out what they do another time." With that he pushed the candy to the side hoping to move on, so he could tell the rest of his story.

"That stuff isn't allowed, we'll get in trouble." Remus stated with a straight face.

James' face instantly dropped to the floor, "No we won't. It's American. These pranks aren't on Filch's list to destroy all fun! Well, at least they aren't on it yet, anyway." He said quickly in defense.

Remus lost his straight face and just laughed, "I know. I was joking."

James then picked up one of the items on the table and chucked the little yellow ball at Remus. Once it had made contact with his friend's forehead it began to screech like a banshee, which made all the boys jump. Once the scream had died away all the boys fell into a fit of giggles as Kara, who had situated herself in the corner upon entering the car, rolled her eyes at them and then fixed her attention back to her little black notebook she had been frantically writing in moments before. When they had finally composed themselves James went onto tell them all about the Americans as his friends clung to his every word.

While Remus listened intently to James' tale, he couldn't help but feel a tad bit jealous of his mate. He would never be allowed to do such interesting things, even when he was old enough to do so on his own. His Lycanthropy would never allow for it, and even if it did he would have to plan accordingly to avoid any stays during a full moon, which would certainly limit his fun. He sighed deeply to himself; it was yet another thing he could add to his list of limitations do to his condition.

"But that wasn't even the coolest part." James said eagerly, pulling Remus away from his thoughts. Remus looked up at James who had seemingly ended his tales of America as he continued about certain top-secret Ministry business he had heard his father discussing with some of the Unspeakables upon their return to the United Kingdom. "Apparently five people disappeared for a week without a trace and turned up at the beginning of the month somewhere in Glenrothes dead." Sirius sat up straight in his seat. His eyes were all aglow with interest. Peter did the same as Remus just continued to sit back in his seat silently contemplating the news.

"Really?" Sirius said completely entranced by what James had just said.

"Yeah, some poor muggle stumbled upon the bodies. He had to have his memory wiped completely of the event as soon as the ministry officials got involved. All the victims were wizards. The only thing Moody said they had in common was that they were considered nutters in Devonshire and had few if any relations at all. My dad said that there's only ever been one case like this before." James finished up rather proud of this top secret knowledge.

Remus frowned slightly at this new information. "James, people die all the time. I mean, granted, it is five people so it was most likely was a murder but I still don't see what's so special about it. There are tons of murderers in this world, wizard and muggle."

Sirius then began to frown too as he processed Remus' statement and then he turned to James asking for some kind of explanation to make this case cool for him yet again. James after looking intently at Sirius decided to then address the oddness of the case, even though his father had warned him against it for he had known full well that his son knew everything he had talked with the officials about. James sighed deeply, "Remus, people who are murdered also normally have some sign that they had been mortally harmed. These people just died, like their very life had been sucked out of them, but there was no harm done to any of the organs or the skin." He grinned morbidly. "And it's only happened once before."

With his final comment Kara looked up from her notebook and stared intently at her cousin and his friends. Remus faltered a bit under her gaze and he suddenly found that he had to ask the only question that was floating through his head. "James, when was the last case?"

"About s-"

Just as he was going to answer the question, their car door opened and in walked Snape and another small boy with short-cropped black hair. He was shorter than Snape and was built rather stocky for his age and was wearing expensive black robes with an arrogant look set contently on his sharp- featured face. When the two had realized whose compartment they had stepped into both began to scowl instantaneously. They walked through as both sides kept an eye on one another, making sure that neither side would pull anything funny, but once they had gotten halfway through the small compartment the smaller boy found that he had to say something to the inferiors they had just intruded on.

"Mum almost disowned you." The younger boy said as he began to play absent- mindedly with one of the candies that were sitting on the table. Remus watched him unsurely and then he glanced up at Snape who was smiling rather smugly at this news. Remus' attention was then brought to Sirius who had been glaring profusely at the both of them from the moment they had entered the car.

"So what stopped her, Regulus?" He asked coldly, taking the bait, which had been set out before him.

"Dad wanted to keep his punching bag."

Sirius clenched his fists in anger as his face began to turn a slightly darker shade of red as he glared at Regulus, completely hating every single thing about him. His brother let out a cold-hearted chortle knowing that he had succeeded at getting on his older brother's nerves. He then picked up the candy he had been playing with and popped it into his mouth. Now it was Sirius' turn to laugh. He knew as soon as Regulus had touched the candy that he was going to eat it. The boy had always had a soft spot for sweets.

When Regulus went to inquire as to what could possibly be so funny, considering the news he had just delivered, he let out a low croak rather than the 'what?' he had meant to utter. The boy's eyes grew wide with fear and his face turned pale before it quickly began to grow a dark shade of red as he began to croak frantically with growing fright. "What did you do to him?" Snape growled as he tried to figure out what was wrong with the young Black.

"Nothing." Sirius retorted viciously.

It was then that Snape realized that it was the candies that had induced the change in the boy's voice and he quickly instructed Regulus to spit out the gum. Even though the boy obeyed immediately, the croaking persisted. Snape then pulled out his wand and pointed it at the four boys who, once he had turned to them, already had their own wands out and directed at him. Snape growled out a final profanity at them and ushered Regulus out of the car as he muttered certain hexes that, in his mind, would most assuredly knock them off the pedestals they were so keen to put themselves on.

"That was your brother?" A small feminine voice asked from the corner of the room.

The four boys directed their attention to Kara, all looking rather confused, forgetting that she had even been in the room to begin with. Sirius only growled at the thought and turned his attention to the window and the English countryside that was sprawled out before him. No one really spoke during the rest of the trip. Every once and a while, someone would mention something of mild interest and a short, to the point, conversation would ensue until, ultimately, all the parties involved grew uninterested and fell into silence once again.

Remus, while in this particular silence, knew that what Regulus had said had hurt Sirius, but at the same time he knew that Sirius was also too prideful to let any of that hurt show. So instead, the brooding silence continued because every other person in the car understood this fact too. Sirius needed his space. He also needed to be alone, but unfortunately as much as Remus wanted to grant him that particular wish he couldn't. At least not while they were on the train.

Lily Evans stopped in once when she was looking for one of her friends who had gone off to find the lady with the treat trolley. When she had spotted Kara in the corner she quickly 'rescued her' from the 'foul boys' she had been staying with. As Lily grabbed her hand and hoisted her up off the ground Kara looked over at her cousin who only laughed mildly at the confused look on her face. Eventually, she left with the red headed girl only because she hadn't known what else to do. Once the car door had closed behind them the boys were left again to be their little gang of four.

The train arrived at Hogsmeade exactly on schedule and the boys climbed out of their car onto the platform. They could here Hagrid's cries for first years off in the dark distance. They resisted the urge to say hello to the giant and instead quickly wandered off to the awaiting carriages. When they had reached the little black coaches Remus stared gapingly at the fact that they were hooked up to nothing at all. He absent-mindedly reached out his hand to touch the air to see if anything was actually there but he quickly decided against it as he realized that if there was a being there, it could possibly harm him if he frightened it. And he would much rather be able to see something attacking him than not any day. He pulled himself up into the carriage where Sirius was talking openly now with James about something Remus didn't fully understand so he left them alone and listened instead to Peter casually talk about the kitten his mother had bought him over the summer and how he was disappointed that he couldn't bring it with him because his father wouldn't let him, saying that the boy would most likely lose it. Occasionally, Remus would add his input on the subject, carefully making sure that he wouldn't hurt his feelings in the process by being to honest with him, until they finally reached the castle gates and fell silent as the familiar surroundings of the castle came into view.

The invisible beasts stopped the carriage in front of the school's entrance and the four second-years clumsily climbed out of the coach. From there they made their way into the Great Hall where the first few students that had already arrived were gathered at their house tables. They walked down to the end of Gryffindor's table and sat down casually. Remus, once comfortably seated next to Peter, looked up at the head table and smiled at the staff that was already situated there. He waved at Madame Pomfrey, knowing that he would have to make a quick visit with her tomorrow just because he had grown to like the older woman very much over his last year. She waved back to him, which caught Headmaster Dumbledore's attention. The elderly man nodded his head in the boy's general direction and smiled knowingly. Remus grinned widely and then turned back to his friends as they all began to talk amongst each other, anxiously awaiting the arrival of the rest of the students and for the sorting to begin so they could thoroughly enjoy the upcoming feast.

A/N: Well, after seeing the PoA twice I figured it was about time for me to type up the next chapter since it has been sitting with me for the last two- three weeks... I hope you enjoyed it. I don't know if you readers have seen the new movie yet but if you have you will notice that my candy scene is similar to the one in the movie. I wrote this, like I said, two to three weeks ago so it's not my fault that I'm so clever something similar came up in the movie too ;). So basically all I wanted to clear up was that was my own idea; I can't help that something like it was in the movie. If you don't believe me, talk to Kara Black, Berbilicious, or Fiery Wordess, if you don't care enough to check that out... read their stories. They're wicked. ;)


	6. Sweat the Small Stuff

Lesson Six: Sweat the Small Stuff; Forget the Big Stuff

Fear is a complicated thing that grips the body wholly.

_And yet with most people they have the ability to cover it up in the midst of a challenging moment of their life_, Remus thought casually to himself as he watched each individual first year walk past him up to the front of the room. 

He had noticed immediately how each child managed to hide his or her fear of the 'challenge' they were about to face. It was strange for him to see their exhibited dread of things to come, for he knew exactly what it felt like to be in their position, having only been through it the previous year himself, but to see it displayed so vividly made him wonder: had he been that scared?

As the new students were forced into a line to wait their turn to be sorted, Remus unconsciously looked over the class before him in search of his cousin who, once located, looked rather stiff-faced aside from her eyes, which were wide with wonder. He smiled slightly as McGonagall began to carefully explain to the students gathered there about what they were to do in order to be sorted. She then carefully pulled out the intimidating scroll of names and slowly stepped to the side and waited for the sorting hat to tell its tale. Once the hat had finished its new song about the four houses traits and the abilities of the four founding fathers of Hogwarts the hall fell into an uproar of applause. When the cheering had finally died down McGonagall, never one to waste any time, took immediately to announcing the first name. "Arhirii, Iris."

The little girl stepped forward, took up the hat and carefully sat down on the worn stool before she finally let out a small scared sigh and placed the Sorting Hat carefully upon her head. She had been sitting there for a long while, and Remus, as he intently watched, could tell that she was still scared. Not only that, but he could almost have been sure that her eyes were clenched shut, even though the hat had slipped past her eyes, as she waited for what horror she would have to face; for placing a hat on your head was far too simple of a task. That had only been some kind of trick so the first years would let their guard down. Or worse, what if she had told the truth to them, and the hat would never yell out a house for the young child. Remus knew the feeling, and he was positive it was the thought of the other child waiting patiently before him. Finally, the hat yelled out "Hufflepuff," tearing him away from his thoughts on the sorting, as a loud chorus of applause resounded from the Hufflepuff's table while polite applause came from the rest of the houses that were watching. All the while little Iris got up from the seat with a large smile on her face and walked over to join her new housemates.

And so the Sorting Hat ensued with the next child. Remus watched as his friends actually paid attention to what was happening, unlike last year's ceremony where they had barely took any notice of their fellow students, who had been being sorting. While Remus watched the next child, a young boy, go up to sit on the stool and place the hat on his head he figured that the reason they were now able to pay attention to the ceremony was because this year they did not have to worry about the hat not saying anything to them this year, for they were already sorted. The anxiety was gone and the torch had been passed to the students now standing before them.

"Black, Regulus."

Remus looked over at Sirius, whose ears seemed to perk a bit as soon as the familiar name had been called out. He followed his friend's gaze to the young students before them as the boy stepped forward with a smug air around him as he held his head high. He then slouched his way over to the hat and the moment he touched it Sirius growled "Slytherin" as the hat screamed out the same just a few seconds later, when it had merely grazed above young Regulus' head. Remus looked over at Sirius questioningly finding it slightly funny that Sirius had even bothered to speak at that moment. "Every member of my family has been and will always be in Slytherin. Well, that is, except for me." Sirius stated as a way to explain his advanced sorting of Regulus with an odd combination of both bitterness and pride. Remus just nodded his head slightly in understanding. He had begun to comprehend, from their summer together, that Sirius hated his family, and he had a valid reason too, so there was no reason for him to try and make a debate over it. He agreed with Sirius on this particular problem.

"Yeah, well, you can also tell by the way they act, like watch this one." James interrupted to get Sirius' mind off of his family, knowing better than Remus that it was not a good idea to let him dwell on it. He then pointed up to the front of the room where a Cassandra Cascario stepped up cautiously to the stool. "What house do you thing she's going to be in?"

Remus stared at the girl as she carefully took the hat into her hands and sat down. "Hufflepuff." Remus said warily before he looked over at James with an unsure glance. The messy haired boy nodded his agreement and as the girl sat with the hat on her head, they waited until finally the hat yelled out Remus' presumption. Remus smiled slightly at his deduction, as he watched the girl walk past them and joined her fellow housemates.

The four boys then began to play this game continually with the rest of the students. They had only been wrong with three of the first years thus far, until Kara stepped forward with a proud disposition as she placed the hat on her head after she had sat down on the rickety stool. The four were silent as they watched respectfully as Remus' cousin was being sorted. Until Sirius could no longer hold his tongue and growled out 'Slytherin' but the hat retorted moments later with a resounding "Ravenclaw." Remus smiled at his cousin as she joined her House table. He wasn't sure what had made Sirius suggest Slytherin, granted she could be a bit of a jerk but most of the time she was fine, or as he had grown used to with Sirius, Kara most likely bruised his friend's pride somewhere along the line. So, rather than dwelling on it he opted to push it out of his mind and simply turned his attention back to the front of the room and watched the end of the sorting.

Though Remus kept his eyes on the front of the room his mind kept wandering to the table across from him despite his not wanting it too. He watched his cousin slightly, out of the corner of his eye, as she looked on her fellow students still being sorted. It did make sense for her to end up in that particular house. His own father had been in Ravenclaw along with his uncle, Kara's father, and Edmund's brother. Not only that, but Kara's mother had also belonged to that particular house when she was in school. He sighed deeply to himself; she definitely did belong there. Her parents would be proud if only they could see it. Yet, even with these thoughts running through his head, trying to convince him that it was okay that she was not in his house, he still would have rather had her sitting beside him more willingly than across from him. That way he could at least be able to look out for her if she were to get into any trouble, which was simply inevitable.

McGonagall yelled out the last name "Weldt, Thomas" who was quickly sorted into "Gryffindor." It was the applause that had woken Remus from his thoughts. As he watched the small boy walk cautiously over to their table and consequentially joined a group of first years sitting somewhere in the middle part of the table. Remus smiled at the boy, as Sirius yelled down the table to a small group of redheads located at the other end, "What no Weasley's this year?" 

Chris looked up and waved at Sirius, "Nope, ended with me," he said quickly, "It's only me, Wilson, and a few of our cousins."

His older brother smiled at the four troublemakers and then hit his little brother on his shoulder. The two boys and their cousins then carefully relocated, along with Lily Evans, next to the four boys. Once they had re-situated themselves Chris continued, "Arthur got married over the summer."

"To who?" Peter asked as he clung onto what Chris was saying having had no success with any conversations with his own friends for that evening.

"Molly Prewett," he smiled slightly, at Peter's blank look he went onto describe the eighteen year old that had won his eldest brother's heart, "Fiery red-head, head girl, went out with Arthur last year. He'd fancied her for a long time before they started dating last year, and now he's married her. It's weird."

They smiled at him as Dumbledore stood up from his seat at the head table asking for everyone's attention. It took mere seconds for the roar from the students chatter to dissipate completely as they looked onto their headmaster, "Good evening and welcome to another year at Hogwarts. I do not wish to keep you from your growling stomachs, so there are only a few warnings I must be sure you receive. As always the forbidden forest and Whomping Willow are strictly off limits, unless one wants to risk the loss of life or limb."

He then surveyed the students with a mild smirk as he continued, "Mr. Filch has added a number of new items to the list of objects not allowed within the school grounds, which is much too long to recite here so if you feel the need to read the complete list of these forbidden objects, they are posted on Mr. Filch's office door."

He smiled whimsically, "Professor Malvitz has retired, so to say, so that he can spend time with his family. So there has been a new appointment, Professor Pike, will be taking the post of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher."

Professor Pike stood at the sound of his name and there was a mild smile on his face as if he were not sure what he was to be doing in such a position. Then he quickly sat back down when Professor Lamia tugged his sleeve in what looked like grand annoyance.

Professor Dumbledore then sat down as well and the food for their feast instantly appeared on the tables. Instantaneously, the students began to grab at the assorted articles of food. After Remus had piled his favorite courses onto his plate he took the time to look over at Kara, who was now busy laughing with another girl from her house, who was as Remus remembered a member of his own class. He sighed deeply and once he looked up from his plate of food, he noticed that James was watching him intently with a slightly worried air about him.

"Wow, I always thought that Malvitz liked his job," Sirius said quietly.

James looked distractedly at Remus as he spoke, "He did, he just finds family more important. Dumbledore said that. His wife had a baby."

"How'd you know that?"

"I ran into him in Diagon Alley a week ago, he was with his wife and they're little girl, his wife was holding a baby."

Peter looked at James, "I didn't think Professor's could have wives or husbands."

"Of course they can nitwit," Sirius said as he jabbed his fork into a piece of chicken.

Remus, who was quite intent on being ignored, shifted a bit from underneath his friend's glances before James finally spoke up, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," the messy haired boy cocked his eyebrow up at his friend.

"Alright," Remus said ultimately cracking from under the look he had just received, "I can't exactly keep an eye on her if she's in a different house."

"You want to end up babysitting that?" Sirius chimed in.

Remus just looked at him blankly, "No, but you have no idea what she could get herself into if she's given the chance."

James sighed, "Don't worry about it. She's happy. If she gets into any trouble then we'll talk to her about it, but until then it's really not worth worrying over. Remus, she can't possibly get into more trouble than us."

Remus just nodded his head knowing that James was right, even if the last bit wasn't exactly the most comforting thing he had ever heard in his entire life, and gave one final look over at his cousin, who was still busy laughing at whatever joke her new friend was now telling her. He sighed once more and nodded his head to himself before he went back to his meal as he listened to an odd combination of James filling in Sirius about the Quidditch highlights of the summer season and the dismal show of teamwork by the Chudley Cannons. Yet again, it seemed to override Lily's sorrowful tales of her sister, Petunia's, growing hatred of her. A thing the girl, as she had stated, didn't even understand, as far as she knew they were still as close as ever when she had left for school last year, but apparently she was wrong.

Remus sat and listened to both of the conversations both feeling for Lily and, yet, also taking the time to laugh at James and Sirius' bickering. A balancing act that he was glad to take on. That was until James' voice broke through with the end to his argument with Sirius, which called for Remus' undivided attention, leaving Lily to talk with Alexandria Prewett without Remus' interfering.

"Yeah, I just hope you play better than your beloved team," James said as he looked intently at Sirius.

"What do you mean?" Sirius asked shortly.

"Well, you are going to try out for beater, there is an opening."

Sirius nodded his head. "I think so."

James smirked as he ripped a piece of chicken off of the bone and placed it into his mouth. Then they fell into an assortment of chatter both with the Weasley's and amongst themselves, until gradually the food disappeared and they were all too full to do anything but sleep. When Dumbledore had given his last words the students were asked to go to their dormitories and they all kindly obliged as they stood from their seats to leave. The four boys smiled at each other as they continued their conversations with the Weasley's on their way to Gryffindor Tower. When they reached the fat lady's portrait they uttered the password and slipped into their common room. From there the four of them said goodnight to the Weasley's and quickly headed up to their old dorm room.

"God, it's good to be home," Sirius exclaimed as soon as they had entered the familiar room.

"You said it," James retorted as he ran over to his bed and proceeded to jump on it with full force.

Remus just rolled his eyes at the two of them, as he too went over to his own bed and took his nightclothes out of his trunk. He carefully put them on, as the others did the same, and then they all climbed into their beds for the night. But rather than going to bed straight away they spent their time telling jokes back and forth until they each slowly drifted off to sleep, until only one was left among the sounds of the night.

Remus J. Lupin stared up at his canopy, silently thinking to himself about what James had said earlier: 'They were dead without any sign.' He rolled over onto his right side not entirely knowing what to think of that comment, and not wanting really wanting to think of it at all. Yet, either way it bothered him greatly. He closed his eyes as he tried not to think too much into the subject that had not plagued his thoughts for that entire day until that very moment. Eventually, he managed to fall into a deep slumber with his last thought being one of the jokes Sirius had told him.


	7. From Where I Sit

Lesson Seven: From Where I Sit

Remus woke the next morning with the sun filtering onto his face, gently urging him to rise up from his motionless state. He slowly rolled over onto his side, trying his best to ignore this ever-calling demand to get out of his bed as he desperately tried to go back to his comforting dreamland. When he finally came to realize that such attempts at extra sleep were futile, he rose up from the abyss that was his bed only to find that no one else was in the room. Remus sighed slightly, knowing fully that this was most likely James' idea to let him have some rest before they started their day. And as much as Remus appreciated the gesture and was eternally grateful that James had most likely detoured Sirius and Peter from waking him from his pleasant dreams, that he could now no longer remember, he definitely did not want to be late for his first class; or worse: miss breakfast.

So rather than dwelling on these particular thoughts of friendship and food any further, Remus quickly put on his school uniform and made his way down to the great hall to meet up with the rest of his mates. He had just reached the ground floor and turned the last leg of the shortcut that lead to the great hall which he and his friends had managed to find sometime towards the end of the previous year at school, when he saw Peeves picking on some poor defenseless first years. He watched for a bit, torn between wanting to save them from the water balloon rage the poltergeist was now showing them and just letting Peeves have his basically harmless fun. Eventually though, he realized he had to at least walk down the corridor to reach the great hall. Therefore, he slowly started down the hallway with the full intention to just walk past the poltergeist without a word being said to the apparition or the first years. Unfortunately, once he had made his way past the scene of obvious torture he found that he couldn't let it continue any longer, as one of the small girls let out a scream as a balloon hit them square on the side of her face. Remus sighed deeply not wanting to do this but knowing he'd feel worse if he said nothing, and gradually turned himself around to face the translucent foe.

"Peeves, leave them alone," the poltergeist just stared at him with the water balloon in his left hand throwing it up and down menacingly at him, "I mean it," Remus added to try and get his point across.

Still Peeves kept uncharacteristically quiet as Remus stared evenly at him waiting for some form of a snide comment to escape from his vaporous lips. All the while, the three first years stood in mild fear, soaked to the bone, as the apparition continued to calculate his next move as if this next trick were as important as the potential checkmate in professional chess match. Remus was not oblivious to this fact as he watched both Peeves and the young girls waiting for something to happen. Then suddenly the poltergeist dropped his weapon. Remus smiled widely at the being, slightly shocked that Peeves had actually listened to him, and slowly turned around resuming his short trip to the great hall. He had taken a mere two steps in the direction he had wanted to go when something collided with his back and water splattered in every direction about him.

Remus stared down at the ground, the gray stone now generally covered with a thin coat of water; he slowly threw up his hands in irritation as the chilly water soaked into his robes. He then gradually turned back towards Peeves only to see him bouncing down the hallway laughing manically at his newest exertion. Remus glared at the apparition and then turned to the first years who were now cackling at their 'rescuer' who was now soaked almost as badly as they were. He glared at them too, completely annoyed with everything that had just happened. Remus then pulled out his wand and gave the three giggling first years a smug smile that resembled that of Sirius' before he quickly cast a drought spell which, consequentially, completely dried out his clothing. He then waved cordially at the first years that had mocked him and walked swiftly away from them, no longer in any mood to help them, and made his way to his mates.

When Remus finally opened the large entry doors to the great hall he leisurely made his way over to the Gryffindors' table joining his friends at their typical sitting place at the end of the table. He sat down beside Sirius who had a flyer in his hands that he had taken off of the Gryffindor notice board about the Quidditch house tryouts occurring at the beginning of next week. The three boys looked over at him when he hand finally situated himself and kindly muttered their 'good mornings' before they then went back to the flyer, which Remus knew would always be more important than anything in the world of the reality they happened to live in. So, instead of taking his time to call them on this, he held his tongue and simply listened casually to what they had been talking about previous to his arrival. Sirius went on with the urgent issue of whether or not James thought he had any chance of making the position of team Beater, while James gave him assuring news that he was definitely the best they could find with a mix of his own prideful boasting that he was a shoe-in.

"They'd said so when I tried out last year!" Remus just laughed at the comment as he began to eat his breakfast ultimately catching a glare from James for the unwanted gesture, "Laugh it up," James muttered half- heartedly as a prefect handed him and the other three their class schedules.

"I will," Remus said with a chuckle as he took the schedule from the prefect and scanned it quickly looking for any flaws, in his opinion, namely potions on day one, but quickly found another. He felt his stomach drop as he looked at their first time slot, "That can't be a good omen."

"What?" Peter asked as he had simply stored his own schedule in his bag without even looking twice at it.

"Our first class is Defense with the Slytherins," Remus said bluntly, causing a moan of pain to cross every one of the four friends' lips.

They then subconsciously looked over at the Slytherins' table and stared at Snape, who had apparently discovered the same unwanted news because he was now glaring contently at them. James and Sirius returned the snide gesture and Remus just sighed. Yet again, that prat had potentially ruined his favorite class. It was bad enough to watch him play teacher's pet in the other classes they happened to have to share together but he absolutely loathed it in this class. For the boy was such a suck up that it even made Remus cringe when he, in fact, knew the answer, and raised his own had. The last thing he wanted was to appear to be in competition with Severus Snape. He didn't want that and he certainly didn't need that kind of opinion cast about him by his classmates.

Remus sighed as he continued to absent-mindedly stare at the boy. He hated him as much as the others did, but what was worse, that unlike his other mates, he also hated hating him. If that made any sense at all. The last thing he had wanted was a long-term enemy. He had enough of them located in Knockturn Alley and the Ministry of Magic just being what he was, and he hated that too. And even then, he hated hating any of these things because the last thing he wanted, above all else, was to appear to be a bitter person as so many of the Lycanthropes he had met in his short life had been. He had nothing to be bitter about, he had a family, good friends, money (for now at least), he was at school, and most lycanthropes could barely even find many of these words in their vocabulary because they had been deleted sometime after they 'received the bite' as so many of them stated as a way to lie themselves. So, he had no reason to be bitter, even towards a git like Snape and his friends would never understand any of this.

"Remmy!" Remus jumped a bit at the sound of the unwanted nickname as he began to focus more on the world around him rather than his own thoughts. He turned around to face his cousin and faked a smile finding that his mood had considerably lowered since he'd woken up this morning.

"What do you want?"

"Tell me where the Transfiguration room is," she said fairly fast.

"Ask one of your mates," Kara's eyes narrowed at him as Remus just gave her a blank stare waiting for the comeback that would ultimately follow. She quickly opened her mouth to retort but she was no sooner cut off by Sirius' voice.

"What, you haven't even made one friend," he chuckled a bit at the cleverness of him and instantly went back to his flyer preparing himself to ignore any of the following rant-to-be.

She growled at him in frustration and Remus could tell that she was seriously debating whether or not she should throttle him or just yell at him. He was extremely shocked when she turned back to him and simply repeated her question. Remus sighed and rather than testing the water any further he simply stated the directions very fast so that out of the bulk of the words the only ones one could catch were "Transfiguration" and "stairs." When he finished he looked at her and waited for a moment before he told his friends that they should be heading off to class. They nodded their agreement and the four quickly exited the room leaving Kara completely confused behind them.

When they had left the great hall they quickly began to make their way up the few flights of stairs to the Defense Against the Dark Arts room. Once they had rounded the first corner and had made it to the first floor the silence they had fallen into was broken.

"Why were you so mean to her?"

Remus cringed a bit at the sound of the voice coming from beside him, "I don't know. She annoys me."

"But you were complaining about not being able to be with her yesterday," Peter replied, obviously still confused by the answer he had received.

Remus stopped and sighed deeply. He never knew why he acted so bi-polar with Kara. He always used the night she ruined his life by making him go outside to get her bloody teddy bear and wound up in hospital for the next three weeks because he had consequently been mauled by a werewolf, a valid reason to hate anyone in his opinion.

But unfortunately this reason, the more he dwelled on it, became less likely. It was his fault it had happened. He'd been the daft one that had gone outside to be the "good person." It was his fault, but he would never admit it, "It's just a love- hate thing. You'd understand if you were in my position, Peter, really, you would," he said softly in a resigned sort of way which made his twelve years sound aged by twenty more.

They managed to make the last staircase and hallway in silence before they entered the dark classroom filled with shelves which had assorted dark arts textbooks, and instruments, with the occasional pictures of their teacher's family sifted into the decor. They took a seat at the back of the classroom carefully taking the time to take their books out of their bags as they waited for the bell to ring and for Professor Pike to make his grand entrance. With time the Slytherins also began to filter into the room and the friendly atmosphere the few Gryffindors that had decided to arrive early had made, soon dissipated rather quickly. Finally, once all the second years had found their spots the bell actually rung and in walked Professor Pike in a bit of a rush.

"He looks like he forgot where the room was," James said with a chortle that the other three echoed.

Indeed the new professor looked a bit flustered as he held a number of books under his arms coupled with a few scrolls of parchment. The man's light hair was a bit messy and fell in his eyes but once he had reached the front of the room he set his belongings down on his desk before he turned to the class and clapped his hands together. Within that one motion all previous accusations of whether or not the man actually knew what he was doing left them for the man's face changed to one of friendly determination.

"Another year and welcome," he smiled at the class as a whole before he continued, "First things first, stand up all of you," the students did what they were told rather reluctantly, "To the back of the room," the students that had taken the time to take their books out put them away and, again, followed the directions that were given.

"I'm sorry to do this to you, but do to certain events that I have been filled in concerning last year we will continue this year with a seating chart," he glanced over the class as if he were looking for the four boys and returned his attention back to the class as a whole, "That sounded like it worked well enough last year for Professor Malvitz," he added finally more to himself than anything else.

He then moved over to the first row of tables and began to assign the seats. Each student waited patiently for their name to be called and once it had, they moved to the appropriate seat.

"Remus Lupin."

Professor Pike pointed to the second row, third back.

"Lily Evans."

He pointed to the seat beside Remus'. Both of them moved rather slowly to their seats and sat down as they tried not to bother one another while they re- took the books out of their book bags. Remus managed to receive a small "hello," but he knew that it would most likely not become much more because one: Lily was a good student and would not take well to being bothered during class and two: his association with James and Sirius would not give him any bonus points. He smiled slightly to himself as he thought of the utter detest that she had grown for them by the end of their first year. If only she actually understood why Snape and James had begun a war with one another, but then again, he didn't really understand it either so the mystery would forever continue.

"-Knott, Sirius Black."

Remus felt himself cringe at the bad situation Professor Pike had just created for himself. If he were trying to force Sirius to be nice to a Slytherin he was not only going on a futile mission but he was also not exactly going about it in the right way.

"That's not good," he muttered absentmindedly, as he opened his Defense book to the page that was designated on the front board.

"What?"

Remus looked up from his textbook and glanced over at Lily rather confused and then realized suddenly that he had spoken out loud, "Er, Sirius and Knott together. It's not exactly a bright idea."

"Oh," she said quietly before she too turned her book to the correct page for today's lesson. They had both begun to scan through the chapter having nothing better to do. Carefully, writing down the answers to the review in their notes, assuming that it would be homework anyway.

"-Potter, Christopher Weasley."

Lily chuckled a bit, "Poor Chris," she muttered and in return received a chuckle from Remus, which seemed to shock her a bit, "What, do you agree?"

"Yeah, Snape is sitting in front of them. James is bound to do something stupid and get the two of them in trouble."

"But they're your friends. Why aren't you standing up for them?"

Before Remus could answer Professor Pike was back up at the front of the room telling them to open their books to the first chapter. He then began to talk about a variety of spells that they were going to learn this year to avoid possibly bad situations in their life after Hogwarts. In that hour discussion he talked of the three main spells and how they were rather useful to all wizards, for protection and sport. This particular statement eventually led their slightly mad Professor to compare himself to the infamous wizard that had tried to blow up the Quidditch World Cup a few years back. Then he went on to state how his students could actually produce the amount of damage the man had wanted to do with a fairly simple spell. He even gave away the book it was in. Granted it was in the restricted section but still, it wasn't really smart to say that. Of course he made it a little better by adding the warning that they shouldn't try it, ever.

Remus chuckled to himself. How they had gotten on this particular subject, Remus had no clue, but it was definitely extremely funny. Not only was it funny, but it was they type of thing that seemed reminisant of the dreaded "Malvitz Factor." A term Remus and his friends had given everything extremely strange that had ever left Professor Malvitz's mouth. Which was actually quite frequent.

Unfortunately, though, the bell rang and the students picked up their belongings and began heading out the door as their Professor Pike assigned the twenty-question review for Section One of the first chapter due the next time that they had class. Still it was a very small assignment where homework was concerned at Hogwarts.

As Remus set his textbook back inside of his book bag when his mind was lead back to his unfinished conversation with Lily. So, as she set the last bit of her notes into her bag he answered her question, "I do stand up for them when I have too. But since it's true that he probably will get into trouble with Chris going down with him, there really isn't a need to, is there?"

Lily listened to what he had said and eventually nodded her head, "I guess, but still, I figured you'd deny it or something."

He shook his head, "Nah, there's no point in that," he fell silent for a while thinking silently to himself, before he continued, "I'll probably get another fifty detentions by the end of the year too," he laughed slightly remembering how his dad had been shocked by the detention report his son had given him upon returning home for summer holiday.

"I don't understand why you participate in it. You seem nice enough," Lily said as the two started to walk out of the classroom, "It doesn't make sense to me how you can be such good friends with them and yet, from what I've seen, you're nothing like them."

Remus stopped when they had gotten just outside of the door he ran his fingers through his hair and looked over at the window, across from Professor Pike's room, where his friends had gathered around patiently waiting for him to come out of the room. He had now become aware that they were now looking at him in extreme wonder, similar to if he were fraternizing with the enemy. Remus just smiled a bit at the thought and continued his conversation.

He sighed deeply knowing that his answer was going to confuse her greatly, "See, I am a lot like them, but at the same time I'm not. I enjoy doing the pranks but I don't exactly hate Snape. Yet, at the same time, I somewhat agree with the things that they do. But then at other times I loathe some of the other things they do to him. It's complicated but they are my mates and I wouldn't trade them for the world."

Lily frowned a bit at what he had said before she answered, "I think I understand, even if I think you could do better in your choice in friends," she sighed a bit and then looked over at James, Sirius, and Peter, before she went on, "I think your friends want you. So, I won't keep you any longer, I have to find Chris anyway," she started to walk away but then she quickly turned around, "And even though I don't completely agree with you, I still think you're a nice guy." With that she did turn around and left to go to their next class.

Remus stood there for a second before the three sets of eyes that had followed Lily down the hallway had now fallen on him and immediately began to stare at him. He smiled at his friends, knowing that he was going to get scolded for being friendly to her, and just laughed at the idea. He loved them but they definitely needed to give each other a little space in the friends department. The only person that should have even been remotely upset by his obvious befriending of Lily Evans would have to be James, because they had been friends first. And now, she disliked him, and Remus was sure that James was still fond of her even if he would never even admit it to their group. Sirius just disliked anyone that hurt James, and Peter, well he seemed to always follow the majority vote.

Remus slowly made his way over too them and smiled widely, "Why'd you talk to her?" James asked.

"She's nice and we're partners. Might as well be civil to one another, right?"

"I disagree," Sirius said promptly, "I'm partners with Knott and there is no reason to be civil to him."

Remus just laughed, "I'll give you that one, but Lily is nice, and she hasn't technically done anything wrong. So, I don't think we have to go and relinquish our wrath on her by showing her in her knickers singing 'Help' in front of the whole school, now do we?"

His three friends stared blankly at him as this statement began to register within the confines of their brains. And suddenly James and Sirius burst out laughing as the image of Snape singing help in a towel resurfaced with the fresh tide of their thoughts. Remus joined in as Peter chortled slightly at their sides just mildly understanding the bluntness of Remus' comment. Sirius slapped Remus on the back in a friendly manner as he laughed occasionally saying "help" as if it were the funniest word in the world.

"That was our best wasn't it?" James said as he put his arm around Remus' neck and began to lead him down the stairwell towards the Transfiguration room.

"I believe so."

"That's a shame," James said with a chuckle as Sirius mumbled a: "help" from beside them as they again fell into a fit of laughter, "Ah, well, maybe we'll beat it yet," the others nodded their agreement as the alpha of their group continued.

"But we should probably get to class," Remus said softly as they passed Kara with one of her new friends as they exited the classroom.

She glared at him for giving her cruddy directions to her class and he just laughed and waved at her nonchalantly as he and his mates entered McGonagall's room. They took their typical seats at the back of the room. Remus sat down next to Peter and started to take out his Transfiguration book. While they continued to joke about possible pranks they could try out this year he smiled widely at the idea of a possible prank. He slowly began remembered his first Transfiguration class last year, and smirked to himself as he looked up at McGonagall who was sitting at her elevated desk. Oh, the possibilities for this year were immense and he couldn't wait to see what was to come from it.


	8. In Preparation of the Full Moon

Lesson Eight: In Preparation of the Full Moon

Remus watched intently as James swooped down with his broom quickly snatching up the red Quaffle as it dropped swiftly from the "other opponent's" hands. He was actually quite good, Remus thought to himself while he continued to watch James' tryout for the Gryffindor Quidditch team. After the first five minutes of watching, he had come to conclude that if the captain and the other Quidditch team members went back on their word regarding James as a shoe-in, they were absolutely mental. Yes, he was young, but that was his only flaw when it came to this particular sport, and if that were going to set him back with another year of waiting, it was strictly unfair.

Peter began to clap intensely beside him when James managed to get past the Gryffindor seventh year Keeper posing as the opposite team. James then flew back to the center of the field and waited for the ball to come back his way but this time when he finally managed to get a hold of it the only option he had was to give it away. A disappointment for him, Remus was sure of it, but overall it would probably help him: it showed that he was not a ball hog; a good trait to have in any sport. Shortly after some other student made the goal the captain of the team blew the whistle he had around his neck and ordered for the students to dismount from their brooms and wait in the stands for the results, which would come at the end of everyone's tryouts.

When James had landed on the ground he ran as fast as he could up the stands and joined the rest of his friends at the top of the box. As soon as he came into view Peter yelled out with a slight squeak in his excited voice. "That was so cool." Remus laughed to himself, almost sure that if the boy had let go of all restraint to his exceeding joy he would have jumped up and down as he had said it and then he probably would have jumped on James.

James just smiled wildly, "You think?" he asked modestly knowing that he had played his absolute best in a long while.

Peter nodded furiously and then looked down at the field as the next few Gryffindors walked out.

"Yeah, you did well," Remus said figuring he may as well give his friend his honest opinion.

James smiled and looked him directly in the eyes. Remus caught his look and then looked down at the field suddenly uncomfortable. He knew what James had seen, it was the same thing he had seen when he had looked in the mirror this morning and ever since had been trying very hard to ignore for the time being. Though, as the day continued to go on he knew that he couldn't for much longer. Just being outside was painful but he had promised he'd watch the tryouts, and he wasn't about to back out of it now, even if he knew they would understood completely if he did.

"Are you okay? Because you could go, it's not that important," James said softly as he put a hand on Remus' shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze.

Remus just nodded and looked up at his friend. He knew James was just concerned and why shouldn't he be? He himself always grew concerned for his own welfare when it came to this day of the month. When the full moon rose in the sky would he pass out straight away, would he spend a week in the hospital or would it be more, would he even wake up the next morning? Remus felt the last bit of color in his face drain down to his feet. He hated that thought; he wouldn't want to die during his transformation. He didn't want to die at all.

He looked over at James and smiled weakly, "No, I'll be fine. I said I'd stay and watch, and that's what I'm going to do."

James just looked at him intently, studying his face for some sign that he was just being too stubborn for his own good. After short while he knew that that was definitely the case but figured that it was Remus' decision that was the final one, and this happened to be his choice, whether or not _he_ thought it was the right one.

"Mount your brooms!" The captain ordered gathering everyone in the stand's attention. The people trying out did as they were told and upon the next order the first person in line flew into the air and started smacking the Bludgers that were thrown at him by the magical force within the large iron balls.

Remus watched as a few familiar faces did their tryouts and all the while he could feel James' eyes on his back. He loved his friend and loved the fact that he cared about his welfare more than any of his friends would ever know, but oh how he wished that James would look at the field just a little bit more.

The next student was up and upon the order of the team captain went through the same drill as the last person missing quite a few of the on coming Bludgers. Remus could feel his back tighten up as the sun began to move to the west as the tryouts wound down with the last two wannabe Beaters waited for their turn. He needed to sit down, his back was beginning to feel like it was on fire and he could feel the fever he had been fighting with all day begin to get worse as sweat began to develop over his brow. But he wasn't about to sit in the seat less than a foot behind him, because he knew that he wouldn't be able to get up from it if he did. It would be too painful and the rest would be to welcome, so he would need help up because it would honestly take too much effort to do by himself, and that would bring more attention to him than he wanted. The last thing he needed was for something like that to get around the school.

"_Did you hear about Remus Lupin?"_

"_No, I didn't. Is he okay?"_

"_Don't know, but his best friends had to carry him away from the Quidditch try-outs."_

"_Why'd they have to do that?"_

"_I don't know... but they say he's a werewolf." _

Remus shivered suddenly, he wasn't sure if it was because of the thought that he had just had or if it was the full moon. Either way it had caught him off guard. He looked around hoping no one had seen his traitorous body shiver uncontrollably like that in the midst of the summer sun. No one seemed to be pointing at him with notice so he turned his attention to James who was still staring at him. He smiled weakly at James once more as Peter spouted out excitedly, "There's Sirius. Look."

Remus followed Peter's pointed finger out to the sky where Sirius was preparing for the first Bludger to come at him. When it finally came at him he hit it so hard it went straight down the field through the left goal hoop before it finally lost enough speed to start its trek back towards him. Remus cheered at that and James screamed that he loved him and wanted to have his babies. Peter, when that exclamation came forward just looked back at James completely confused, which only made Remus chuckle despite his current worries. This chuckle caused him to have a small coughing fit as his ribs and lungs began to burn from the small effort it took just to laugh. James glanced at Remus and patted him on the shoulder, as a way to tell him that it was still okay if they bailed. Sirius would get over it, eventually.

Remus ignored the gesture and continued to watch as Sirius hit every Bludger that headed towards him as viciously as he did the first time, each time he would aim it at a different target to prove that he could hit the ball _and_ make it go where he wanted it too. Both of which were much needed skills to have to be an efficient Beater. Eventually, the captain blew his little whistle and ordered Sirius to the ground and then for the last person in line to go so they could get done with the tryouts all together.

Sirius dismounted his broom and followed James' suit by running up and joining his mates. When he reached the top of the box he didn't even wait for the excited spurts of joy from Peter he just smiled wildly as he strode over to them saying, "Wasn't that WICKED?" he took a seat in the stands still breathing heavily from the workout he had just given himself, "I hit _every_ one of them. I've never been able to hit every one of them before because I don't practice enough. I don't have a Quidditch pitch in my back yard like you do, James, so really how could I. But I did it!"

He smiled widely, "And they said in the locker room that I was too small for a Beater. Bullocks to that!"

"Sirius!" James said at the unnecessary curse word, "I'm glad you're happy. You did well and you should be. They're completely mental if they don't put you on the team. You were the best out of everyone that tried out. "

"Same goes to you, Mr. Potter," Sirius said with a quick wink which, in return, James put his arm around Sirius' head and quickly rubbed the top of it, which made Sirius' black locks fall out of place so that he looked like he had just gotten out of bed.

Remus felt himself roll his eyes at the pair of them, and then made a step towards Sirius to give his own compliments towards his playing but was stopped abruptly by the fact that his vision had blurred and he'd suddenly become very dizzy. He felt his body start to fall backwards and he couldn't stop it. Then he felt a wave of panic surge over his body. They're were a ton of witnesses, it was bad enough having a seizure in class with twenty to thirty people around to see, but half of Gryffindor common room was watching these tryouts. He felt someone catch him from behind and then steady him by putting his arm over another person's shoulder. He knew it was James and Sirius; they didn't even have to speak for him to know who was helping him.

"We're taking you to Madam Pomfrey," He heard James say seriously.

"The results can wait," Sirius finished with a rather reluctant air in his voice.

Then he heard Peter's worried cries coming from behind him as James and Sirius lead him down the flights of stairs to the steady ground. They took a few more steps forward, once they had reached the ground and Remus watched as little dots began to flicker in front of him, each time revealing more of the Hogwarts' landscape until finally he had regained all of his eyesight. He looked up from the green grass, as they grew closer to the entrance to the castle.

Snape was standing off towards the side of the castle. He was slightly out of breath and judging by the look he was giving the group, he had seen everything. Snape had seen him fall, he had seen James and Sirius help him, and with any luck Remus would be an outcast in the school by the time he came back from the Shrieking Shack. Remus felt a fresh wave of fear wash over his body as James and Sirius seemed to pick up their pace and lead him up to the third floor corridor despite Remus' constant protests that he could do it himself.

When they entered the infirmary, Madam Pomfrey was busy examining him in an instant. She looked in his eyes, checked his pulse, and took his temperature along with every normal precaution for something as mild as the flu. When she had finished she looked at the other three boys, "We'll fix him up, he'll be right as rain soon enough," she lied as she remembered Albus Dumbledore's warnings at the beginning of last year that no one, not even anyone close to him, was to know of his ailment, even though she disagreed somewhat with it, "You all can leave now."

James, Sirius, and Peter stood there for a moment in complete shock. They looked over at Remus who was pale with fright as he thought over all the horrible things that could happen to him if Snape had actually managed to put two and two together, not even paying attention to the conversation. He glanced away from their stares unable to look them in the face with all the pity he felt for himself at that particular moment. Then suddenly Sirius spoke up, "We're not going anywhere."

Remus looked up over at them in shock as he saw Sirius' defiant stare and James' nod of agreement and then Peter's look of complete shock. Madam Pomfrey opened her mouth to protest and then, most likely, forcefully escort them out of the room. But before she could, Remus stopped her, just now figuring out what was going on, and told her the one detail he had failed to mention to her about his friends when they had spoke to her last week quickly about their summer vacations and what he should expect from this years transformations, which hadn't changed at all, "They know."

Madam Pomfrey then looked at the three boys and smiled proudly. Remus caught the meaning quickly and corrected her, "I didn't tell them. They figured it out on their own and told me on the train ride home."

The older woman nodded and smiled weakly at the boys before she looked over at Remus and nodded her head, "You boys can stay, but the next time I say you have to go, you will listen and leave promptly."

The three nodded and then quickly joined Remus on his bed. They spent the next few hours joking and poking fun at each other. And with the comforting jokes Remus quickly forgot about Snape and his previous worries. Remus tried his best to concentrate on his friends rather than on the upcoming full moon or whatever else was to come from the day's events, he was going to make sure he enjoyed every minute he had left of the fading sunlight.

As the first hour dragged onto a second Remus realized rather quickly that his transformations were less painful with James, Sirius, and Peter around. He was still in a lot of pain but it seemed to be less overall because he didn't have to dwell on it. Or at least that was his theory at the moment, which also went along with James' Animagus plan.

He had managed to hold off until late in the afternoon before he had blacked out. Usually things like that began to happen a week in advance and gradually turned into seizures when he drew closer to the full moon. But he hadn't had any of that this time around. Or any of that sort of thing last month, when only Sirius was with him. Granted that time he had been sick the whole day of the full moon but typically that sort of pain, when he had only his parents or Madam Pomfrey for comfort, started the day before that. He smiled at that thought. He was getting better with their help. Obviously he would never live to see a cure, he knew that, and this disease would ultimately kill him, he knew that too, but as long as he had them, he'd be fine. He'd be fine.

That was a thought that in itself made him want to cry. Being fine was a tremendous thing, for never before had he understood that word, "fine." For him there had always been a precaution to look at when he did something, whether that be the fear of a possible silver burn, or whether he'd lose a friend. With them around these things didn't seem of so great importance. And as he looked at James, Sirius and Peter's laughing faces he realized that he'd continue being fine as long as he had them.

As the second hour turned into a third and the sun began to set steadily in the west Madam Pomfrey came in and quickly ushered his friends out of the infirmary. Telling them that they could see him the next day if Remus wanted them to see him at all.

Remus watched as Sirius nodded his head at the comment, knowing better than the other two why Remus may not want them to see him. Yes, James had seen him ripped to shreds the year before, but Sirius had also seen how emotional it was for everyone involved to see him in such a way the day after he had been healed yet still was bed ridden. They were two completely different things, two separate feelings of helplessness for a close friend, and neither one was, in all reality, easy for Remus to see either. This Sirius knew, and respected above all else. So with resigned looks the three loyal friends of Remus J. Lupin walked out of the lonely room leaving the frail boy with only Madam Pomfrey for comfort.

Sirius looked back at James once the heavy oak doors had shut with a resounding "thud" behind them, his eyes had grown dark with a combination of fear and utter sadness for their friend. He sighed deeply, as if he were going to say something to fill the silent void they had fallen into but had decided instead to ignore the thought and continued forward, away for the infirmary, towards the direction of the library.

James followed reluctantly behind Sirius, knowing that the look in Sirius' eyes was just another thing he would hide away from the world if he said nothing about it now. He was used to Sirius' secrets but that didn't mean that he agreed with them being kept. He knew it was unhealthy, and if anything, would probably end up being the reason for his demise, in the end. Yet, it wasn't worth voicing his opinion over the matter. He'd tried countless times before and that had never gotten him anywhere in the long run. Sirius was simply too stubborn when it came to these sort of things. It was Sirius' way to keep himself safe. A defense mechanism his father had taught him, and his father before him had taught him, and so on. There was no breaking the chain of Black secrets even if Sirius were willing; there would always be something he'd want to hide from the world. So, James had tried to learn how to deal with the flaw, though most of the time he proved to be unsuccessful.

Sirius continued to lead them down to the library fully content with not speaking of Remus until they had reached their destination. It wasn't that he was ashamed of what was going to happen, or scared for his life like some people would be if they knew a werewolf were attending their school. It was different. Something he couldn't exactly explain. He was scared, scared terribly, but not for himself. He was scared for Remus. He'd only ever been scared for one other person before in his life and that was James. It was a welcome, but slightly unknown, feeling for him to have, and that sort of scared him too. Opening up to another person was always frightening for him. He was never able to trust people because they always managed to stab him in the back. The only person that he had ever met in his young life, that was different, was James, and as it always seems to go, once you open yourself up to one person others seem to follow. Granted it had taken eleven years but it had happened, and Sirius was glad for that.

They had just turned the corner that lead to the library when Sirius' thoughts were broken and Peter's voice came out with a slight tremblem, "Is he going to die?"

The words sent a chill down Sirius' spine and from the feeling of James' eyes on the back of his head he could tell that James had figured out what had been bothering him on their trek to the library, and there would be no further inquiries about it later. He was thankful for that, and turned to Peter with a small smile on his face and went to say that Remus would be okay, but found that the words, the possible lie got stuck deep within his throat.

James spotted the problem quickly and detoured away from Sirius' lack of speech, "He'll be fine, Peter. There's no need to worry," James stared straight into Peter's face and then took his hand and placed it firmly on Peter's shoulder, gave it a slight squeeze of reassurance, and smiled weakly, "He'll be fine.

"Let's just go get those books we need, so we can start getting ready for 'Operation Lupin,'" with that being said Peter gave out a worried squeak, which the other two ignored, and the three strode down the remainder of the hallway and wandered into the library and headed straight for the Transfiguration section.

The library was mostly empty this Saturday night. Most of the students had retired to their common rooms early for a bit of fun before going to bed, or if that wasn't the case had opted to ignore their homework until the next day. This meant that the three looked rather suspicious all by themselves in the darkly lit room. Madam Pince kept her eye on them the entire time. Every so often one of them would look back at her and smile and then turn back to the stack of books on the shelves looking for anything and everything that pertained to the particular matter that they were searching for.

It didn't take them very long to realize that this was going to be harder to do then they had originally thought. Most of the books were rather blunt about the subject sticking mainly to things like: "Animagus: a human that can turn into an animal at will" or other forms of describing the act in itself. If that wasn't the case the book seemed to talk mostly about the Animagi Registry, rather than the actual act of becoming one. Once they had collected every book they could gather on Animagus Transformations they each gathered a few books among them, checked them out, and walked out of the room.

"We're going to need to get permission to go into the restricted section," James said once they were well away from the library.

"How are we going to manage that?" Sirius asked.

James just shrugged his shoulders, "I don't know. We could try McGonagall."

Sirius groaned loudly at the absurdness of that, "Oh yes, and what are we going to say? 'Oh, McGonagall, we were going to do a research paper on a seventh year topic just for fun.' A simple interest in the topic? She'd never believe that," Sirius gave James a level stare and smirked slightly at the equal glance of seriousness he was getting in return, "It won't work, mate."

James nodded after staring at him for a long while and then continued up the stairs to Gryffindor Tower, "What about Flitwick, or Sprout?"

"Doesn't exactly deal with the subject they teach, now does it? And they'll most likely want to know why we want their permission. It won't work if we get a signature for a dangerous charm or plant and we try to check out a book on Transfiguration."

James groaned. This _was _going to be harder than they'd thought. They couldn't ask Professor Vector, and they wouldn't even try to ask Lamia even if they could because it definitely wouldn't work. Not to mention they'd probably end up with a month of detention for even asking. They made it to the tower and were standing outside of the fat ladies portrait each lost in their own thoughts on the matter. James opened his mouth to say the password but just as the first syllable had left his mouth Peter cut him off.

"I think I've got an idea," he burst out extremely proud. James and Sirius turned to him with disbelief shining in their eyes

"Really?" Sirius asked rather sarcastically without considering the boys obvious joy. Peter just nodded his head under the heavy gaze he was getting from the two of them together.

"Yeah," he started sheepishly, "We coul-, we could... just tell the truth."

Both James and Sirius' mouth dropped open at that, but once Peter had seen the reaction he tried to clarify what he was trying desperately to say. Silently hating the fact that he was so bad at talking with everyone, even his closest friends, "No, not like that. It'd be more like a half-truth. We could just say that –er- we have a theory. A theory on werewolves that if they were around other creatures... animals... they can keep their mind when they change. And maybe, just maybe, if that were to be true an Animagus could stay with a werewolf and not be harmed," he looked at James and Sirius and noticed that their expressions hadn't changed yet.

He continued on, shakily, "We'd use Professor Pike, he's new and probably doesn't know _everything_ that we did last year. And we could tell him that we needed to know how the transformation worked to prove our hypothesis. That's it. It's not all lie," he looked at them and then finished completely deflated, "It's just an idea."

Sirius, once he was sure the boy was done telling them his idea, opened his mouth and spoke loudly, "Peter… that is by far the stupidest plan I have ever-"

"It just might work," James interrupted. Still staring at Peter in disbelief.

"What?" Sirius and Peter asked in unison.

"It just might work," James repeated as Peter's face broke into a huge smile.

Sirius just turned his blank stare from Peter to his best friend. James couldn't help but smile at the look he was getting from Sirius and continued with his own justification of Peter's plan.

"Listen, it might work. It's crazy enough, that it could work. Most people don't get suspicious of theories or whatever, especially when it's coming for someone our age. They'll just think it's a joke and either tell us to get lost or treat us just to get us to shut up," he gave Sirius a knowing glance but when he only received a glare in return he got slightly irritated and when on, "You know that, Sirius, just as well as I do. Just look at how many times we've gotten my dad to give us money for prank supplies under false things like that."

Sirius smiled widely then. He took the time, then, and continued to roll the idea over in his head as the Fat Lady began to threaten them that it was either in or out and that it was rude to make a lady wait. Sirius just glared at the portrait and then finally nodded his had to say that he was in.

"Alright, then we'll try it. But first let's look over these books and make sure that we're not wasting our time even coming up with a plan."

The others nodded their heads in agreement and James slapped Peter on the back to show he was proud of his rare cleverness. Then he turned to the fat lady, muttered the password and the three quickly climbed through the hole before they could hear any further complaints from the painting.

Remus stared at Madam Pomfrey as she closed the doors behind his friends. He felt empty suddenly and looked away from the older woman not wanting her to see the disappointment in his eyes. He stared intently at the white sheets that were covering his legs and frowned. He hated being alone. Granted he did have Madam Pomfrey, but she tended to fuss a lot so it really wasn't the same. Comforting in an odd overbearing sort of way, but not in anyway enjoyable like with his mates.

That didn't mean that he didn't like Madam Pomfrey; that was hardly the case. If anything he was grateful for her kindness and was glad she was around, even if she did fuss too much. She was a lot like his mother in some ways and that helped a lot when it came to his waiting for the sun to set and for hell to rise. He looked out the window at the grounds to see the sun just barely above the trees and knew that Madam Pomfrey would be getting him ready to be smuggled out of the castle like an escaped convict soon. In a few seconds Madam Pomfrey walked from the doors she had just closed and walked to the other end of the room, went into her office, and had come out with three or four bottles filled with assorted potions for various things.

She took out a large spoon from her robes and began pouring a turquoise colored potion into it, and then she made Remus swallow it. He grimaced a bit at the taste. It was bitter, much like a bar of soap, but he made no comments knowing that it would only gain a swift reprimand from the medi-witch. He needed the potion so he wouldn't bleed to death. He didn't know how it worked exactly, but he did know that it made his body reproduce more blood once he was cut open so that as he bled the gallons of blood he often did on these particular nights, it would quite literally refill itself. The reason she made him take it was for if Madam Pomfrey happened to be late in gathering him the next morning chances would be he would still be breathing when she got there.

Once he had downed that potion the elderly woman quickly poured a different bottle of potion into the same spoon. Again, she made Remus swallow it and Remus gulped it down quickly knowing that if he didn't the contents would begin to burn his mouth. As the amber liquid slipped down his throat he felt his whole body begin to warm up. This sensation was to continue until he woke up the next morning safe in the separate hospital ward that had been built for severe patients. Whether that meant bad Quidditch injuries or young werewolves recovering from a "bad night," either way he hated the room because it was lonely.

Madam Pomfrey gave him a few more potions each a separate color and each performed a different duty to ensure his safety. When she had given him the last potion (an orange one that should prevent any infections on the open flesh) she handed him his cloak and helped him get out of the white bed. Remus put on the heavy cloak even though it was summer and hardly cold. Then, the woman led him out of the infirmary into the hallway. To a side passage that was ignored my most of the students and staff. Remus knew the route by heart and could have definitely taken it by himself on any other occasion but he was still dizzy and may have needed her help if he'd had another spell. She quickly tapped a brick towards that bottom of the wall with her wand when they had reached the end of the corridor. A section of the wall, where she had tapped the brick, large enough for the two to go through one by one, opened up and a set of stairs was there and only torches lit the path. They followed, with Remus in front as Madam Pomfrey kept one hand firmly on his shoulder. They went down the dark passage and down to the ground floor where the stairs stopped and the passage turned to the right and lead out to the grounds.

Remus opened the stone wall the same way as Madam Pomfrey had once they'd reached the end of the passage before. Once it opened, he stepped out onto the damp grass. He sighed deeply as he looked over at the Forbidden Forest only to see the sun was now behind the trees and the sky was lit with brilliant oranges, yellows, and pinks. He smiled despite himself as he thought of a saying his mother said frequently on such days: "pink skies at night: Sailor's delight. Red skies in morning: sailor's warning." Apparently, that was a way sailors had predicted the weather for sailing and as far as he had noticed it was typically correct.

Madam Pomfrey gently pushed Remus in the back, breaking him away from his 'happy thoughts' as a way to tell him they had to get moving. Remus listened to the silent order and continued to walk past the Quidditch pitch, which he avoided looking at in shame of what had happened earlier. His mind slipped back to Snape as they walked over the hill and the Whomping Willow began to come into view. Maybe if he were lucky, James and Sirius could fix whatever rumor Snape may start. At the moment he didn't care if they chose to use an "any means bases" to take care of the potential problem either. He hated being mean to him, but this was about his own safety, so he was a bit more passionate and careless with his thoughts. But as long as they stayed there he should be all right, at least that was how he saw it anyway.

The medi-witch picked up a long stick and poked the knot in the thrashing tree. They had to crouch down to avoid some of the longer branches making contact with them, but once the knot had been pushed in, the tree froze and they both hurried up to the tree and climbed down through the hole which lead to yet another passage. They followed it down until they reached the end and found themselves in a house. Remus looked around at the furnishings inside, all strewn about what would have been the living room. He tried to ignore the sight as he headed up the stairs to the bedroom at the top, but was drawn to the deep cuts in the railing. The cuts _he_ had made. He cringed a bit as he thought of what such massively sharp claws could do to a person and prayed that something so horrid would never happen. They reached the top of the stairs and turned and entered the bedroom. It was empty mostly except for a nightstand, a chest and a large four-poster bed. The bed had torn curtains around it that were still stained with blood. His blood. Madam Pomfrey followed Remus' gaze and gently placed her hand on his back and rubbed it in an act of comfort.

"I tried to get the stains out, but it didn't work. I even sent up some house-elves to try and get rid of it," Remus looked back at her and smiled weakly.

She returned the gesture and continued, knowing that she had to leave her favorite patient behind or risk her own life, "Remus, please try to get in the bed before you pass out. I know it isn't you," she added as he opened his mouth to protest, "but try. You are a brave young boy," she said finally.

"I'll be back for you around six tomorrow morning."

With that she gave Remus a final hug, turned around, and left the same way they had come. Remus then walked over to the bed and touched one of the posts where four claws had dug deep into the wood. He felt tears sting in his eyes. He was alone, and scared: again. He looked around the dusty beaten room and sighed. This was his cage. He was a monster, and maybe one day he would be able to accept it.


	9. What are friends for?

Lesson Nine: What are Friends For?

The sun filtered in through the one window in the little room, and softly grazed over the pale cheeks of the battered boy lying peacefully within the comfort of the white hospital bed. Remus slowly opened his eyes as the light from the sun temporarily blinded him. He lay there staring at the ceiling of the lonely room, enjoying the silence. He moved a bit, twitching his hands, just a little, and found that, for the most part, they just tingled and left an irritating itching feeling in its wake. Unfortunately, he couldn't find the strength to move his other hand to relieve the new annoyance. So instead he simply let the hand lay at his side and made a mental note not to move it again.

He sighed deeply to himself and decided to concentrate on nothing but the ceiling for lack of anything better to do. As he was staring at the crack in the wall that resembled his swinging tree at home he heard someone beside him move a chair across the floor and suddenly the crack-tree was forgotten and the numbness in his body came back to his mind.

"I can't feel my toes."

There was more shuffling to his left so he took a chance and turned his head to face whoever was in the room with him. As he turned his head his eyes blacked out a bit from the effort. When it cleared everything was blurry. _So this is what it feels like to be James._ Remus thought to himself as his vision cleared a bit more and he felt a smile play on his lips from the thought.

"You probably can't feel more than just your toes."

The smile faded a bit as the voice came to his ears and the image of his cousin became clear and he could make out her green eyes and soft brown hair. He ignored his impulse to argue with her and just managed a small polite smile for her. "You're right. I can't feel my hands either."

She chuckled a bit and shrugged her shoulders. "Well, you look good. All things considered."

Remus just smirked. "I don't feel like I've been ripped to shreds." He said after he looked down at his bandaged right hand.

"You shouldn't."

He thought for a bit and then picked up his other arm only to have the itching return. There were four large gashes dug into his pale arms that had been stitched together with a magical fiber that, once in the skin, became invisible, and was only used for severe cases after potions and charms proved to be helpless. He smiled morbidly at the site before it began to tingle more vividly, and then put his arm back down at his side as he turned his attention back to Kara. "Numbing Potion?" She nodded slightly, her eyes dimmed slightly as she looked at him. "Good stuff... aside from the itching." He said as he smiled at her and was glad when she returned the gesture sincerely.

Kara then shuffled a bit in her chair uncomfortably before she grabbed something off of the end table beside him. He watched her as she carefully opened a chocolate frog and ate it, first taking off the legs and then finally once it had no limbs, she bit off the head. Once she had successfully "killed" and eaten the chocolate amphibian she made a quick hand gesture towards the table, that he now noticed was filled with other assorted trinkets of candy, and asked if he wanted any. Remus kindly shook his head to decline. He wasn't really hungry and on top of that the mere idea of food made him mildly sick at that particular moment. Kara just shook her head in understanding and continued with whatever thought floated to the top of her head, as she stared at the newly decapitated frog she had just opened.

"James, Sirius, and Peter brought them in earlier today during there free period. I think they asked Madam Pomfrey to go into Hogsmeade for them. Because I'm pretty sure I saw James give her a bag full of galleons. They've been in here, at least twice, everyday waiting for you to wake up."

The last sentence caught him off guard. Everyday. How long had he been out? Remus looked up to her eyes and from the solemn expression that seemed to dim them heavily he assumed it had been a few days. Despite the look in her eyes and the dread of what they were giving off he asked just to be sure.

"Four days. Madam Pomfrey said that she found you beside the bed. She was shocked by that because, apparently, you're normally at the bottom of the steps like you'd thrown yourself down them before you passed out for the night."

Remus grimaced at the thought of freefalling down a flight of twenty steps, which then flashed instantly to the idea of the white bed sheets stained with crimson and said bitterly. "I asked you how many days I was out. Not a background story of how I abused myself this time around."

"Sorry."

He shrugged his shoulders not wanting to chase her away just because he didn't want to think about his full moon rampages. Being alone was worse, so he didn't want to chase away his only tap, at this moment in time, to the outside world.

"Don't be." He looked out of the window over the forest and down at the grounds as a few students walked down the beaten paths heading to whatever class they happened to have next. "Anything interesting happen while I was out?" Suddenly a smile began to play at the corner of his cousin's lips forming her infamous smirk. "What? What happened?" She continued to smirk as if she were reliving something extremely interesting. "Come on, out with it!" He said with a slight chuckle, wanting every detail of what he had missed while he'd been unconscious. Kara just smirked a bit longer and then, reluctantly at first, went into her story.

"Snape saw you faint and he took it upon himself to tell the entire school how weak you were, and all you four are, as a group, a bunch of organized bullies. Apparently, he doesn't approve of the pedestal you and your mates put yourselves on. So he was going to knock you off it to prove that you are not nearly as cool as you seem to think you are."

Remus made a face at the proclaimed accusation. Snape thought he was pompous? That was ludicrous. He never put himself above anyone, at least not that he noticed anyway. He always tried to treat people fairly. At the sour look on Remus' face Kara laughed and continued with her tale.

"Yeah well, he's a stupid prat anyway. I myself wanted to do something horrid to him but your friends beat me to it." She sounded almost angry at the thought of missing her chance to defend his honor. Remus pushed himself up in the white hospital bed using up the little bit of energy he had left but still managed to keep his attention on his cousin as she went on. "I don't really know how they did it but it has to be them." She started more to herself than anything else. "Anyway, as Snape was eating his soup at lunch, well, he managed to take two or three spoonfuls of it but by the fourth he put the spoon in his mouth only to find the handle but no soup." She laughed a bit before she regained composure enough to tell the rest. "The spoon part had melted in his soup. He was so white once he realized what had just happened. Whiter than usual, which is definitely saying something. I think what was going through his head was something like 'what's going to happen to my insides?' but either way it was a sight for anyone to see." She laughed a bit more. "He left shortly after that to come here but Madam Pomfrey said he would live and that whatever was in his soup was harmless once in the body. And that it was just some kids having good fun at his expense." She chuckled a bit more and then added. "I heard Sirius say as Snape past him on their way to potions today 'Those house elves must really hate you.' So I'm almost positive that it was them."

Remus laughed loudly at the thought of Snape turning even whiter than he was on a daily basis. "God, I wish I could have seen that."

Kara nodded. "It was something. I don't know what Snape'll come up with, but I'm sure Sirius is going to pay for what he did."

He shook his head slightly. "Nah, I think we'll all pay. Snape's not really picky when it comes to payback. Any of us would do, I'm sure of that."

His cousin just shrugged her shoulders in a 'glad it's you and not me' sort of way before she picked up a striped box and offered him some Bertie Bott's which he, despite his better judgment, accepted and was ultimately happy to find that it was only strawberry. At least the stars weren't against him at this moment in time. He smiled as he chanced another one. It was white in color and when he bit into it he couldn't quite place the taste but also didn't find it repulsive. Rather than risking another jelly bean and his run of good luck thus far he picked up a chocolate frog and ate it instead. The two spent a good while just sitting in a comfortable silence eating the sweets that his friends had bought him before he grew bored and selected any topic out of the air to discuss.

"So, how do you like school?"

"It's great." Kara stated joyfully and then, without any further pressing, went onto tell him everything she had been through since the term had begun. He smiled as she told him about her 'best friend' Alexial Mune, who had been quiet at first until they had gotten into talking about a book series both were completely obsessed with. Once Kara had said that Alex was in his year he nodded stating that he knew and that the two were in the same Astronomy class. This slightly popped her bubble but she quickly recovered and went on to talk about how well she did in both Defense and Potions, which ultimately lead to her disbelief in how Remus was so terrible at it.

"It's easy!"

Remus shook his head violently despite the dizziness it caused. He ignored the whirling feeling within his brain as he retorted in defense. "No, it's not. It's difficult, just because you-"

"Oh shut it, Remmy, it's just as easy as cooking. And don't say you can't cook because I know you can!"

Remus grimaced at the use of the terrible nickname she had accidentally given him when she was little and couldn't pronounce his full name properly, but ignored it to continue the comment she had cut off. "I know I can cook." Remus stated indignantly.

"Then you should be able to do potions. All you have to do is follow the 'recipe.'"

Remus glared at her, knowing that she was right, yet, at the same time realized that he was and always would be horrid at potions. "Yes, well, things can't blow up while cooking if you do mess it up."

"That's bull and you know it." Kara said with a slight chuckle at Remus' stubbornness.

Just as Remus was about to retort, he heard the loud happy voices of James and Sirius reach his ears. He looked over at Kara and from the disgusted look on her face he knew that she had heard them too. He laughed slightly as he heard Sirius ask Madam Pomfrey's permission to give Remus his homework. "You really don't like them do you?" He asked as he heard Madam Pomfrey give the two trouble-makers her okay to enter the room. But as the door started to open he heard the medi-witch give one last warning for them remain quiet and not to bother Remus if he didn't want any more company.

"I don't like Sirius. The other two I don't know so I can't judge them." She said quickly as Sirius and James finally managed to enter the room after all the warnings had been passed. They smiled widely upon entering once they had noticed that Remus was sitting up in the bed. Kara frowned as soon as she spotted them standing in the secret doorway but quickly faked a smile. "I should go. I have a Herbology project to do."

"Oh, okay." Remus said even though he knew she just didn't want to be around Sirius. He smiled a bit to himself as he watched her go. She was a lot like Sirius in many ways, actually, one of which being stubbornness. He knew that she didn't 'hate' Sirius, but she had at first and since that had been her first judgment of him she would never go back on it verbally.

"How you been?" James asked once Kara had shut the passage door behind her and they could no longer hear her retreating footsteps.

Remus stared at him for a while, inwardly comparing his cousin to Sirius before he finally took the time to answer James' question. "Good, I guess. I can't really feel my body." He said simply with a small smile playing at the edge of his lips.

"It's probably better that way." Sirius replied dryly as he pulled up a chair and sat down at Remus' bedside. James followed suit with a nod of agreement and a sad smile. He didn't understand how Sirius could be so casual about this. Granted, he didn't want to treat Remus any differently than anyone else but it'd also be nice if Sirius showed their friend at least some form of sympathy. Not baby him, by any means, but at least show him some form of a feeling on the matter, good or bad. James couldn't just ignore it like Sirius. It was probably one of the only areas where the two of them were completely night and day from one another. James felt bad for Remus and he would show it. He knew Sirius did too, but he also knew that 'it's probably better that way.' was the closest they would ever get to 'I'm sorry this has to happen. I wish it wouldn't, and I hope you recover soon so we can get back to having fun.' It was unfortunate but eventually he knew he would have to let it go and except it as the only way Sirius ever dealt with a problem. No matter what form it came in.

"You're probably right." Remus replied still smiling at his friends, popping James out of his thoughts with a shocked look on his face. Remus chuckled a bit to himself knowing exactly what his friend had been thinking. He himself felt the same way but as with James had to simply accept it. But he also knew better now, from his summer with Sirius, that going with whatever Sirius did, or saying a quick joke in reply to it, was the best way to put some joy back into the set back life had dealt their little group. Ultimately, this meant they would have to get used to Sirius' inward need to hold things back.

Remus stretched a bit in his bed causing his whole body to tingle uncomfortably from the after effects of the potion that was beginning to wear off. He then looked back at his two friends and suddenly realized that they were missing a member. "Where's Peter?"

"Missing in action." Sirius said with a quick smirk, which faded quickly when James punched him on the shoulder for being slightly rude.

"Lamia gave him detention." James said quickly.

Remus stared at him in shock. Peter never got detention unless it was with the whole group. Otherwise he just sort of shied away from trouble, not entirely enjoying it like the other three seemed too. "How?" was all Remus could manage to say after he had tried and failed to figure out a way Peter could get detention in the only class he was good at.

James only frowned some more at the simple question before he answered. "Sirius threw an 'ickle bomber in his cauldron and blew it up."

Remus then turned his attention to Sirius who was busy staring at the ground as if it were the most interesting thing in the world. Remus didn't know what to say. What in the world had Peter done to deserve that? Under the pressure of Remus' confused gaze Sirius finally looked up from the stone floor and locked eyes with his friend. "It was an accident, okay?" He said defensively with a hint of disappointment in his voice. "I was aiming for Snape's and it fell a table short." He sighed deeply and then went on with the woeful tale. "She said that Peter had done it on purpose, despite his protests, which only seemed to upset her more, and eventually she knocked off 70 points from Gryffindor and gave him detention for the next three days." Sirius fell silent for a second. "He even cried; that made me feel even worse about the whole thing." He looked back down at the ground. "Why'd he have to cry? It wouldn't have been as bad if he hadn't of cried."

"Yet you never apologized."

Sirius made a sour face at James. "Apologies never do anything. You know the person's either being forced to do it or they're simply doing it as a way to gloat. I'd be doing neither so why even bother? Peter knows I feel bad about what happened."

Remus noticed that James made a slight face that suggested that Peter might not fully understand the way Sirius' mind worked, and because of that may have actually thought that Sirius wasn't sorry. After thinking on that, even Remus himself had to admit that that was probably the case, but neither of Sirius' friends would dare say call him on it.

"Probably." Remus said finally.

"What do you mean probably? He knows. How can't he? He's my friend I wouldn't do that to him on purpose."

James smirked slightly. "No, you wouldn't do that to us at all."

"Shut it." Sirius said as he caught the sarcastic tone in his best friend's voice. The three laughed slightly as Remus grabbed his side slightly from the vague feeling of pain it caused, until they finally fell into silence.

They stayed quiet for a long while before Sirius began to fidget out of habit and Remus watched him intently as his hand gradually found its way over to the slightly smaller pile of sweets. He gathered a small handful of Bertie Bott's, which he daringly placed into his mouth. Remus stared at him as if he had grown another head, as he chewed the beans and swallowed them without even a hint of a flinch. When he had finished that bout of jelly bean fun, he went for another handful.

"Do you have any taste buds?" Remus asked which earned a fit of laughter from James, who was used to Sirius' eating habits. James nearly choked on the jawbreaker in his mouth and had to spit it out.

"Yeah, actually I do. It's good." Sirius said after he had swallowed the second handful. Remus' face scrunched up in slight disgust. "Hmm... I think there was lacquer somewhere in that one."

Both Remus and James felt a little sick after that revelation but laughed at the utter disgustingness of it anyway. James sighed and replaced the jawbreaker once he had stopped laughing, then he handed a chocolate frog to Remus without a word. Remus took it and quickly began dissecting it as his cousin had earlier. After they had finished stuffing their faces James smiled at Sirius and Remus knew they were going to get to the real reason the two had visited him.

"What?" Remus asked once the two had been smirking at each other for far too long and had started to become a little unnerving for him.

"We took out a bunch of Animagus books from the library to study." Sirius started which caught Remus' undying attention.

He had honestly thought that all that talk had been a show and hadn't thought much on it since the train-ride home last year. They weren't going to do it? They wouldn't. After all James' dad was Minister of Magic, why would he want to break the law? But from the mad grins on their faces they were seriously considering doing something illegal to aid him in his living nightmare.

A slight wave of panic hit Remus as he thought of all they were willing to risk for him. He couldn't let them do it. But then he heard the traitorous voice in the back of his head say 'sure you could.' After all it'd be good fun, and no one would have to know. As he tossed the idea over in his head, the more he liked it. The more he wanted to risk his friends' lives to help his own. It was reckless, sure, but overall, he assumed they could handle it and eventually he found the little voice in the back of his head win and become verbal as he stated. "And?"

James' smile grew even larger at the apparent okay and went on. "The books were terrible. The most they did was give definitions on what an Animagus is. Only one out of the seventeen we checked out gave us anything to go on."

"Yeah, and what did it say?"

"It listed personality traits and then gave an assessment of what you might be if you did happen to try it. Though it then went on about the legal ramifications." Sirius said quickly before James could answer the question. He rolled his eyes slightly at the last bit, speaking in a 'blah blah' sort of tone.

Remus felt his bubble burst under the words. They had nothing. Nothing. He was going to have to go through his whole school career missing a week or two every month to recover from his one night of torture. He looked away from them for a second trying to build his wall of hope back up without letting them see his disappointment.

"It's not that bad really." He heard James offer and knew that his attempts to hide his dissatisfaction in their proclamation were futile. So he turned his head back to them and noticed a pain in his neck and knew that the numbing potion really was wearing off.

"How's that?" Remus said a little ruder than he had intended do to the added pain in his neck that had shot down his back in a slight pulsing manner.

James ignored him, guessing at what was going on, and continued. "Peter came up with a plan."

Remus didn't mean to laugh, but it came out in a quick jibe-like tone, before he could stop it. He stopped quickly when he saw his friend's serious faces and knew that this was no joke. He blushed slightly from his uncharacteristic outburst and nodded for them to continue. They did and instantly went on to explain Peter's simple yet possibly affective plan to get Malvitz's permission. When they had finished they just looked at Remus for his approval for the second time that evening. He smiled slightly. It could work, but before he could answer Madam Pomfrey bustled into the room and started fussing over the fact that Remus was sitting up in bed.

Remus just slouched back down and winced in pain and was unhappy when he found that Madam Pomfrey had seen. She fussed over that some more stating that: "If you were in pain you should have said something." Then she tutted a bit before she walked out of the room to gather up another numbing potion. Remus sighed and quickly turned to his friends knowing all too well that when Madam Pomfrey returned she would thank them for being kind enough to give him his homework and then usher them out so he could have some 'peace and quiet.' "I like the idea. When I get out of here we should give it a go." He said quickly but then added once his conscious kicked in. "But if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. Okay. I don't want you breaking the law if he says no. It just wasn't meant to be, okay?"

Madam Pomfrey came back into the room with a light yellow potion in her right hand and quickly administered it to her patient. Remus grimaced at the acidic taste and then ignored the bit of fussing he both loved and hated to ask: "Okay?"

His friends nodded as the medi-witch turned to them and told them to leave as Remus had expected she would. They did as they were told and as their backs disappeared behind the hidden passage door. Remus was drawn away from the closed door as Madam Pomfrey began to fluff his pillow. "Don't worry. They'll be back." The medi-witch said as she took out some healing lotions and started rubbing them in his wounds to speed up the healing process the magical stitches couldn't do all on their own.

"I know." Remus said with a smile.

"They're good kids." She then looked Remus in the eyes. "Good friends, you are very lucky to have them."

Remus only nodded. He knew more than most people just how lucky he was to have them as friends. Not many friends would risk their lives to better their mates life, granted most said that they would, but his were not only risking their lives in a very literal sense, but if caught they would indefinitely end up in Azkaban no matter who they were related to. And for that he loved them.

He smiled to himself as the bits of pain he had been feeling for the last few minutes began to disappear completely. He talked with Madam Pomfrey as she finished re-dressing his wounds and continued to do so long after she had finished until finally, his eyes began to betray him and he shut them slightly for a bit of rest as he talked. Eventually, his words became less, and he fell asleep in the loving comfort of the makeshift hospital wing for extreme cases.


	10. The Daily Prophet

Lesson Ten: The Daily Prophet

Remus returned a few days later. Slowly but surely the weeks went on to blend, as often they do, into a basic assortment of dull colors. He caught up quickly enough in the majority of his classes and, though all his teachers knew of his ailment, they treated him no differently than the other students. Meaning mainly that, with every absence, they only allowed him one day extra for every assignment he had missed.

This, though, was not really the part that bothered him. He knew that if he wanted to take advantage of his situation he could, and no one would think the less of him if he did. And that the only reason his teachers stuck to this regimen was due to his own request that they did so, when he had first entered the school. Remus didn't want to attract any 'special' attention to himself by earning the unwanted title of "teacher's pet." Such things were not exactly appealing among his fellow class of twelve-year-olds.

So, Remus continued to do his work, struggling all the way, but eventually managed to catch up with his classmates. Although, Potions continued to be more of a plague of endless doom compared to anything else he had to do for the week he had missed. For Professor Lamia had been kind enough to assign a major essay during his temporary leave from his daily routine. It was hardly fair, but his friends only needed to remind him once, their soulless professor never really bothered much with "fair." And as Sirius had said the first day Remus had returned to school, she probably couldn't even define the word.

Aside from the endless vats of homework and T's in Potions everything else was in order. The four boys had gotten back into the habit of using their lair in the hospital wing as a study room after they had found that their common room was too full for their purposes of devious planning or quite simply copying down notes for History. Whatever the case happened to be.

Though they enjoyed spending time together in the old general common room, on most nights, come the end of September, two of their numbers had adapted Remus' style and were often absent from the homework festivities. Quite simply, Quidditch had started and both James and Sirius had made the team... which _would_ have been more brilliant if the two hadn't continued to gloat about it until the second week of October.

Remus smiled to himself as he sat sleepy-eyed on the comfortable couch copying down James' Transfiguration notes from that day's lessons. Granted he had many of the notes but it was always nice to see James' just to get any extras he may have missed while the stupor of the lecture had set in.

The room was quiet except for a few of the house founder's portraits that occasionally bickered back and forth. Remus could feel Peter next to him moving awkwardly in his seat as he fidgeted with scroll after scroll of various notes. Every once and a while he'd let out a deep sigh of either confusion or exhaustion or most possibly both. These were the only natural sounds of music that passed between the two of them for the last week or so of their new routine.

Remus looked up from the second scroll of notes he had to check over, let out a quick yawn, and examined the mostly empty room. James and Sirius were missing once again due to their need to practice for the first big game at the beginning of next month. Slytherin verses Gryffindor. Needless to say that even though it was merely a little more than a week away both sides were beginning to make cheap shots at the others dignity and pride whenever they got the chance.

With these snide comments somehow it had leaked out of the confines of the Slytherin common room that Severus Snape had tried out for the team and had failed miserably at any attempt he had made to catch or throw the Quaffle to another player. According to the Slytherin team captain, a blundering first year would have been easily preferred over him.

When this information had reached the four boys, Sirius threw a fit laughing and James took it upon himself to take advantage of Malvitz's seating chart and casually tortured him until Snape finally, at the beginning of that week, blew a gasket and outright hexed James in so many ways no member of their elite group was laughing anymore. James had to spend the remainder of that day, well into the night, in the hospital wing recovering from the mildest of Snapes' rage (a babbling curse) to the worst which despite countless searching through their Charms textbook and Sirius' "Jabberwocky Jinxes" book he had received for Christmas the year before from Remus, only to find that they were unable to locate the hexes that Snape had used, which ultimately convinced them that whatever he had done to their friend had most certainly been 'dark' magic at its weakest.

Remus smirked a bit to himself as he flipped over to the next scrawl of notes. They'd spent the majority of that month trying to come up with a clever way to prank Snape after that incident but unfortunately were unable to come up with, and agree on, anything better than setting a dungbomb off in the back of his robes during Charms. Which, they did end up doing, but it was more like dumb fun rather than anything truly revengeful. So, in the end, they settled on simply hexing him whenever they could, making good use of Sirius' jinx book.

Though, Remus did aid in the torturing of Snape, and despite himself did deep down enjoy seeing their foe in pain, it hurt him just the same. He felt bad for Snape. And humiliating him daily was never his intent. He had tried to stand up to his friends, but every time they convinced him that it was nothing, that he was taking it too seriously. So he continued to go with it, and, at some level he knew, he continued to enjoy Snape's pain. A feat he was anything but proud of but continued to ignore for the good of the group.

Remus let out a huge yawn as he rubbed his sore eyes. He looked into the dancing flames of the fireplace and watched the yellow flicker elegantly before he carefully rolled up James notes and placed them on the end table beside him. He then took his own notes and placed them in his rucksack. As he bent over he felt a slight pang of pain spread through his back. He rubbed it slightly and then cursed his fate knowing that it was simply his body getting ready for another battle with itself. Remus groaned slightly as he looked over at Peter who was lying beside him with his History book open wide on his lap but his eyes were closed and soft humming noises were coming from him signaling that he had fallen asleep. Remus chuckled a bit to himself before he stood up and stretched out his back and legs. Each motion caused a dull discomfort for him. He groaned slightly as he took a step closer to the fire.

"Oh my, he does not look well, does he?" Helga muttered to Rowena who was located across from her own portrait.

Remus just looked up to the portly woman depicted in yellow and black robes of her time, and grinned as pleasantly as he could. He could hear Rowena tutting slightly from her own portrait as she prepared to answer, but before she could she could Salazar Slytherin managed a retort. "Yes well, he would wouldn't he?" He stated as if he were bored. "If I were still in charge I would have never let a half-breed in this school."

Remus felt his whole body tense up as the comment filled the empty void of the room. He then turned to the portrait and smirked as kindly as he could. "Yes, well, you are no longer in charge and you should not take it upon yourself to judge me because I have an ailment, _Sir_."

"Now, no one is judging you dear." Helga piped in. "Salazar is merely," she glared at the portrait, "being himself."

"Quite right, pay no attention to him. You are where you are supposed to be." Remus turned to Gryffindor and smiled feeling some of the edge ebb away. He nodded and sat down once again.

"Thank you." Was all Remus could manage.

He hated having to defend himself to these portraits. Mere illusions of what the people had once been when their bodies had occupied the earth. It was the only reason he much preferred the non-sarcastic, stable forms that muggle science had provided. At least he didn't have to defend himself to the ancient beings of muggle history. He groaned as he finally came up with a suitable reply for Salazar when his friends quickly piled into the room.

A blur of crimson and gold came towards him in a hurried rush. Remus smiled at them as they plopped themselves down on the couch causing Salazar to look down his pointed nose to the inferior children in his midst. Sirius noticed the portrait and stuck his tongue out at him and muttered that he'd take his quill to him if he didn't shape up. Slytherin merely glared at the young Black made a comment about how they used to be a respectable family and then exited his portrait. Sirius smiled contently to himself before he turned his attention to James who was still stretching out his legs.

"Slytherin has no chance of winning next week. I mean no chance." Sirius said proudly into the void of the room just to avoid the silence.

Remus smiled. "Well, that's good." He smiled weakly.

"You'll be okay by then. Won't you?"

Remus nodded. "I should be. It really depends on how much damage I do to myself, maybe, with any luck, I'll just pass out straight away."

James nodded slightly in a distracted manner as he looked at the rows of bookshelves lining the room. Remus just looked at him in a confused manner before he turned his attention back to Sirius.

"But if I'm not able to make it you are going to give me a run down no matter what the turn-out is."

"Of course we will, mate." James replied. "But I'm with Sirius. We're going to win."

Remus smiled at him and then he turned around to look at Peter. He was still sound -asleep. At least one of them could sleep pleasantly no matter where they were. He then turned his attention back to James, who once again had gone into a slight look of meditation. Remus just raised an eyebrow and looked at Sirius who merely shrugged. He stared at Sirius for a while until he was certain that both of them knew something that he didn't. Once again he was out of the loop that was Sirius and James.

"What's up?" He asked after a moment of silence. He realized that no one would speak until he said something. _Or_ until they felt the need to tell him what was going on, which often lasted a good week or three before they felt that particular need.

James jumped slightly at the sound of his unexpected voice. "Nothing."

Remus just shook his head. "'Nothing,' doesn't make you go quiet."

James smirked a bit and then nodded.

"Fine."

He then pulled out a copy of the Daily Prophet and opened it to the front page where a picture of five men, all smiling in a jovial manner, was displayed beside the headline "Men Found Mysteriously Slain." Remus felt his stomach churn at the sight.

"I didn't want to say anything just yet. It's interesting, or at least I think it is, but not exactly a good thing to whip out at a time like this. I mean with Quidditch and your full moon escapades. I just didn't think you'd want to think about death."

Remus just scanned the title. "These are the same men you were talking about last month?"

James nodded. "Yeah, my dad finally let out the news publicly because they were unable to find out anything and he figured it was better not to cover it up. Dangerous for his career you know."

"Yeah." Remus muttered as he carefully took the paper from James and quickly scanned the article only stopping if something popped out at him.

"_Five male victims found in Glenrothes, Scotland... all bodies were found in the same state. After further investigation the Aurors were unable to locate any point at which a weapon was used... no signs of a spell being used... bodies were in perfect condition... all organs were in working order and no toxins were traced within the bodies to signal a cause of death... The few family members that were located have been informed of the tragedy... Aurors investigating the crime continue to be baffled by its intricateness."_

Remus looked up at James once he had finished reading the article, as a feeling of numb shock slowly settling over him. James hadn't made it up. Part of him had honestly thought that his ramblings on the train about the incident were just James' outlandish imagination at work. Not that Remus thought James to be a liar, but he often wanted to make things more romantic than they were just for a good story. Anything to make life more interesting. But here, in front of him, was solid proof that everything that he had said was true. There was a madman out there just killing people in a very 'mysterious' fashion, and no one knew how he was doing it, so they obviously couldn't stop him.

He handed the paper back to James and ran his hand through his hair in thought. James took the paper back and placed it on his lap.

"I just wish they had of mentioned that it's only happened once before." He smirked slightly in a morbid manner. "That would have made it more interesting."

"Maybe you were mistaken." Sirius piped in for the first time. James just looked at him slightly taken aback. "Well, it wouldn't be the first time you made a mistake in eavesdropping."

Remus laughed despite himself. Making all eyes focus on him once more. He looked away from their glances, when they first fell back on him.

"Sorry, I'm just tired." He yawned slightly to prove his point and then continued. "Maybe they just wanted to respect the family it happened to first. You know keep them out of it so they don't have to relive the past."

Sirius just shrugged his shoulders. "Possibly, but I doubt that, looking at that as the front page would hash up any old memories."

"I agree. It was probably just bad journalism. They missed the cool facts." James added.

They fell into silence once more as they all silently mulled over the article.

"Your dad could have not mentioned that fact." Remus said finally after much thought on the subject.

James sat back in his seat and ran his hand through his hair. "Now _that_ I can see my dad doing." He smirked a bit to himself. "Ah, it doesn't matter anyway. This was probably just a hoax. Odds are that it won't happen again. Or the bloke'll wait another seven years before he has another go."

Remus just nodded his head hoping that James was right. The last thing the wizarding community needed was a madman with a brain. Remus ran his hand through his hair once more before he stood up and gently shook Peter awake. The boy just looked confused and claimed that he wasn't sleeping before he fully registered where he was. The three boys laughed at him as they slowly collected their stuff and exited their den.

They walked slowly up to Gryffindor Tower in silence too tired to speak anymore. They were too deep in their own thoughts to say anything even if they had wanted to. Once they had reached their room they each slowly undressed themselves and put on their pajamas and climbed into bed. They then bid goodnight to one another and fell into the soft symphony of the night.

Remus lay on his back listening to Peter's soft snores and Sirius tossing in bed, searching for the perfect position to fall asleep in. The only voice that did not make an appearance, aside from his own, was James' and he knew that his friend was contemplating the news he had gathered from the paper. Remus sighed as he stared at the designs in his bed's canopy as he slowly thought of the people that were left behind... the tears that had been shed, those that hadn't, and he slowly felt his own eyes well up. How could someone be so cruel? To rip families apart! What if they had enough heartache already? Did they ever think of that? No, because that would involve thinking about someone else. And that was always a difficult task for the human race to consider.

Remus rolled over in his bed and wiped the tears away from his eyes before he shut them in preparation for a reluctant sleep. And the image of the news headline surface boldly within his mind, as Sirius' words echoed triumphantly in the dark, _"Possibly, but I doubt that, looking at that as the front page would hash up any old memories."_


	11. The Healing Powers of Quidditch

Lesson Eleven: The Healing Powers of Quidditch

Remus sat up in the white bed and looked out the frosted glass in the window onto the grounds. He could hear Madam Pomfrey moving around in her office as she listened to the Witch Wireless that was broadcasting the Quidditch game. He sighed deeply as he looked out of the old window, swearing to himself that he could make out his friends flying back and forth on the miniscule field in the distance.

Madam Pomfrey came out of her office and smiled slightly at him, "Do you want me to turn it up?" she asked kindly as she stood in the doorway.

Remus merely shrugged his shoulders and continued to stare out the window at the "game." He heard the volume increase slightly as the broadcaster switched to a commercial, which was now advertising "Wanda's Wonderful Wax: _for floors, furniture, and brooms_." Remus didn't move his head when the medi-witch re-emerged from her office and came over to his bedside. The woman casually pulled up a chair and sat beside him, silently urging him to look away from the imaginary scene that was in the distance.

He ignored her presence for as long as he could. Patiently waiting for her to kindly order him to take another potion for the injuries that ran brutally down his young body. But no such order came, so they simply sat in silence watching the invisible game out the iced window.

After a while, Remus felt her move slightly in the seat beside him. Then she took hold of his left wrist suddenly and felt for his pulse. She made a few "hmm" noises as she timed the regular beats. When she finally let go of his hand, she walked over to the large medicine cabinet and pulled out a light green potion. She gradually poured it into a spoon and walked back over to Remus.

"Here take this," she stated with her typical firmness.

Remus groaned slightly before he pulled himself away from the window and glanced at her, and opened his mouth. She then administered the foul liquid. He groaned aloud once more, after he had swallowed, and coughed a bit from the bitterness.

"It's not that horrible, Mr. Lupin," the medi-witch stated with a small smile.

Remus just shook his head as the elder woman sat back down next to him.

"You don't have to take it every month," he muttered bitterly.

He then turned his attention back to the window, silently wishing that he was anyone else at that particular moment. He could sense the frown begin to form on Madam Pomfrey's face. Then, out of the temporary silence, he heard the soft voice that he often thought only he was privileged to.

"Remus, I know I have told you this before, but you are an incredible boy. Not many can live the way you have had to. It's mind-boggling how you manage to do so at such a young age, and still find something to be happy about," she looked down at her patient with a soft, almost motherly, smile.

Remus just turned to her with a solemn face as she continued, "You're very brave, and you make your friends and family proud. And I know that you wanted to go to the game, but in your state it is better that you listened to me and stayed here. You're friends will understand."

Remus was silent for a long while before a tear managed to escape from his eyes and slide down his cheek as he thought on the woman's words. Finally, he looked into the medi-witch's eyes, "I know that they understand. But I said that I would go to the game and I hate breaking my word – even if it can't be helped," he sighed deeply as he glanced out the window once more before he continued, "I just wish that I was someone else. I wish that I could be normal like the other kids here. But I can't," he gave a deep heave as he began to cry openly in his frustration, "I can't," he managed one last time before no more words would leave his mouth.

Madam Pomfrey merely looked at the young boy she had grown so fond of, as tears formed in her own eyes. She then, reached her hand over and took hold of Remus' small hands in her own. She squeezed it gently, letting him cry out all of the things she knew he held in, as most Lycanthropes were accustomed to do.

Even long after Remus had ceased crying she continued to hold his hand. They sat like that, listening to the game that was playing out on the other side of the school and, every so often, Remus would perk up from his reverie when the student announcer (Kevin Clowes) mentioned newcomers James Potter or Sirius Black.

By the time James had managed his seventh goal, making the score a whomping 120 to 50: Gryffindor in the lead, Remus was openly rooting his friends on. Madam Pomfrey grinned at him as he cheered for his friends. When Kevin announced: _"Dillingham, has spotted the snitch!"_ Remus had completely recovered from his previously bitter thoughts.

Remus nearly jumped a foot off of his hospital bed at the announcement. The medi-witch merely scolded him half-heartedly for moving far too suddenly for the majority of his wounds. Remus said nothing, far too excited to take heed to any of his healer's words, as the announcer continued to describe the events that were taking place.

"_Dillingham dives sharply towards the ground, swoops left barely avoiding the Bludger sent by Keigwin. Wickham pushes his way into the action. He pushes Dillingham, who veers off track. Slytherin leading the chase – hardly fair! Oh wait – Black sends a Bludger – That has got to hurt! _

"_Dillingham is back on the trail. Another Bludger is sent her way by Botolph. Misses -- Dillingham jumps…" The fifth year announcer breathed heavily over the speaker before: "YES! Gryffindor wins! A great game-"_

Remus didn't even take the time to hear any of the other comments his fellow student had to offer, instead he just threw his fist in the air, startling his comforter, and yelled in joy. He continued to shout praises at the radio, joining the happy crowd that could be heard screaming in the background of the broadcast. He only stopped yelling once he began to cough uncontrollably under the added pressure such actions contributed to the wounds that were still healing around his throat.

Madam Pomfrey then gently pushed her patient back into a laying position and quickly administered an anti-cough potion for the fifth time that day. She then firmly instructed him to rest. She then went into the office, where she stayed, and turned off the radio. Remus just grinned at her and went back to his looking out the window, absently pretending that he was there witnessing the celebration with the rest of the Gryffindors.

After a while, he sighed deeply and shut his eyes to rest. A few minutes later, he heard loud voices echoing down the hallway in a joyous, but out of key, song. He felt a smile twitch on his lips as the voices dissipated and three very happy Gryffindors strolled into the room.

"I think he's asleep," Peter muttered once they had stopped at the side of his bed.

"He can't be asleep," Sirius mumbled back. Amidst the reply he could hear the distinct sound of glass bottles clanging together.

"Wake him up then," Peter retorted.

"You can't wake someone who's not sleeping," James stated bluntly.

At that Remus' "sleeping" face broke into a wide smile. He opened his eyes as James punched him lightly on the shoulder with a slight chuckle. Sirius, then, shoved a butter beer into his hand and smiled. Remus just looked at the slightly warm bottle in mild confusion, "Where'd you get this?" He asked as his brow furrowed. He continued to stare at the bottle before he looked up at his mates waiting for an answer.

"The kitchens last night. We asked some of the house elves to do us a favor. They weren't at all bothered by the request," Sirius smirked widely as he went on, "You have to love the fact that all they want to do is serve you. Can't really argue with that, eh?"

Remus shook his head as he opened the bottle and took a big slug of the warm liquid. He then wiped his mouth clean with his sleeve as Sirius and James gave him a quick rundown of the game, figuring that he didn't known what had gone down. Remus just smiled as the two tried to reenact some of the finer moments that involved them as Peter chimed in with the occasional "Yeah, it was so wicked." When they had finished with the Quidditch match they went on to fill Remus in with the schoolwork he had missed for that day.

When they reached the topic of Defense Against the Dark Arts they grew slightly sheepish under Remus' gaze, while James told him, as best he could, about the lecture on the deflecting charm they were to have down by their next class. As they were ready to switch over to the next bit of homework he had for Transfiguration, Remus halted them, and said the exact thing he knew they were trying to avoid, "So, I guess you still haven't talked to Pike yet."

The three looked at their friend with a solemn face. Remus just sighed, relatively shocked by the fact that he was actually disappointed that they had not gone straight out and asked him the day of the full moon. Like they had originally planned too do. Seeing this reaction James spoke up first, "If we hadn't had Quidditch practice all this week we would have, honestly. Next time, no matter what, we'll do it."

Remus' brow furrowed once more in thought, "It's okay. Really, it's no big deal."

Hearing the disappointment in his voice, Sirius spoke out loud without even thinking of the words before they had left his mouth, "You know what, why don't we do it as soon as you get out of this bloody ward. That way you can slap us around a bit if we try to chicken out," he smirked slightly at his words as he watched Remus' face turn into a slight smile.

"It really is okay. You guys don't have to do that," Remus stated once more as his pleased face defied any modest comment that tried to come out of his mouth.

James laughed at Remus' words, "It's not like Professor Pike is all that intimidating, right? Plus, he likes us. Like Peter said he'll probably give into us because it is such a far-fetched idea he'll just let us have a go."

"Yeah, probably, I just hope he doesn't say no."

Remus looked over at Sirius and frowned, "I doubt that he would."

"But doesn't he know of your condition?" Peter chimed in. He looked at Remus, earnestly hoping that this setback would talk them out of going through with the plan he wished he had never come up with. The last thing he wanted was to spend time with a werewolf in full form.

The chubby boy shivered a bit as Remus answered cautiously, "Yeah, he does. But I don't think he'll put two and two together. Granted he's not stupid, but he often overlooks things like that. Plus like James said: he likes us," he smirked slightly, "As long as we aren't causing trouble in his class," the four laughed, with Peter going about it more nervously than the others, which none of the others noticed.

They continued to laugh and joke as their little collection of full butter beer bottles quickly diminished. By the time the drinks had been completely depleted the four had recovered from their Anamgi conversation and were once again celebrating the Gryffindor's win... which was slightly dampened when they came to the conclusion that classes were not going to be very pleasant when Monday rolled around. The Slytherins were going to be unbearable. And worse still, Snape would most definitely be waiting to seek revenge on James for humiliating his House. Which most likely meant, all four of the boys would go down.

They joked slightly about all the ways they could prepare themselves for a number of possible sneak attacks from their foe, until the sun went down and they casually began to yawn in a demented sort of round. Eventually, Madam Pomfrey came back into the room from her office and ushered James, Sirius, and Peter out of the infirmary. With a few more jokes and quick laughs the boys said goodbye to Remus and reluctantly left the ward.

When the heavy doors shut behind them Madam Pomfrey turned to Remus and smiled at the lopsided thoughtful smiled on his face. She sighed deeply as she walked up to his bed and checked his pulse once more. She grinned as she walked back to her cabinet and grabbed a few potions that she gave him once a day to speed up his healing. She set them on the nightstand next to him and carefully poured each of the assorted liquids into a spoon and gave it to him. He grimaced at the assorted tastes, each varying in their degree of nastiness, slid down his throat.

When he had taken the final potion the older woman went on to check over his bandages, changing those that needed to be and adding salves to those that no longer needed bandages but still required some sort of caring for. He winced a bit at the stinging the ointments caused in his healing wounds but "recovered" quickly when he saw the half-hearted glares that his healer gave him.

Occasionally, he would joke with her that she was secretly trying to kill him with those "horrid potions," rather than help him, as she simply threatened to tighten the bandages so they were even more uncomfortable for him. He laughed slightly at the empty threat as Madam Pomfrey finished her work. Once she was done she proceeded to pull up the white sheets so that they covered his entire body. She tucked him in, much like his mother used to do when he was five, and hummed softly to him as she did so.

Remus smiled at the gesture as he looked around at the other beds that had been used for various Quidditch players that had been injured during the game. He hadn't noticed them when they had actually been in the room, but now the unmade beds were a small reminder that he had to, once again, spend the night alone. He sighed slightly as Madam Pomfrey continued to hum whatever lullaby was in her head as she put out the candles that lined the room. The room fell into darkness. She whispered goodnight to her favorite patient and drew the privacy curtains around him as he muttered the same to her back.

Remus stared at the dark curtains as he rolled over onto his side. He stared at the curtains as they faded in and out under his sleepy eyes. He smiled slightly to himself as he gave one final thought to James' and Sirius' victory. He then closed his eyes, one last time, letting the sleeping potion Madam Pomfrey gave him do its job as he fell swiftly into a dreamless sleep.


	12. Permission

Lesson Twelve: Permission

Remus stared down at his wristwatch silently counting down the seconds until the bell would ring and proclaim go time for "Operation 'Magus." In the outer regions of his mind he could hear Lily's quill scratching dryly against her parchment as she tentatively took down the last of the notes for the day.

_90 seconds…_

He looked up at Professor Pike and carefully jotted down the last few bullets of their notes on the mechanics of a watered down deflecting charm that they were going to be practicing for the remainder of the week. His own quill moved quickly across the page as it formed messy letters while his mind wandered aimlessly from one idea to the next. All the while, his busy mind barely registered all of the key points that his left hand was putting down.

_60 seconds…_

_Why does it seem like time's slowed down? _Remus wondered tentatively as his eyes drifted back over to the second hand on his watch. It still looked like it was trying to be slower than the minute hand. He quickly chanced a glance at his friends, who were busy with whatever was occupying their minds, for their own quills did not seem to be moving. Aside from Peter's that was.

He carefully looked at each of them in turn until it had registered that, despite their outward appearances, they were nervous, even Peter seemed on edge as his face hovered closer to his paper than it typically did. Remus smiled to himself when he looked over at Sirius, who was actually paying attention to the lecture, undoubtedly trying to keep his mind off of what they were going to do. Then he stared at James, only to see him ruffling through his hair with his hand giving him an "I just woke up, don't bother me" look. Remus turned back around and sighed deeply to himself before he eyes, once again, wandered back down at his watch.

_30 seconds…_

He suppressed the urge to groan aloud with his growing frustration with the concept of time, and simply settled on staring at his paper. Remus then looked up at his Professor, trying to place where he was in his final bits in his lecture only to find that he was joking openly with a few of the students in the front row. He laughed a bit at some of the comments that referred the lack of importance of they're latest lecture, which was an ongoing joke amongst the students and their teacher, when he felt a hand rest gently on his knee. Remus turned towards Lily, her green eyes shifted towards him with a casual smile. He returned the gesture awkwardly as his leg stopped bobbing up and down with nerves.

Lily merely lifted her hand from his knee once he had stopped moving the leg he hadn't realized he was bobbing and mouthed, "Are you okay?"

Remus simply pushed his scrawl of notes up a bit on his desk and wrote on the bottom of it, "Yeah, I'm still a little sick. That's all."

She read the notes, studied his face for a moment and then nodded her head. The bell rang loudly throughout the school and the students quickly packed up their belongings and left the classroom, until only four remained.

Remus looked back at his mates and grinned to himself. Then he turned back to watch Professor Pike as he walked over to his desk and shuffled through some of the papers that were haphazardly sprawled upon it. Remus could hear the others behind him begin to shift in their desks, so he quickly followed their actions and, once his notes were in his backpack, stood up. Somehow, he now knew that they were going to eat their previous words.

"_It's not like Professor Pike is all that intimidating, right?" _

_Yeah, right._ Remus ignored his more cynical thoughts and joined James at the front of the room to Professor Pike's stronghold, otherwise known as: his desk. He stood there a moment beside James as he glanced over his shoulder only to see the other two taking their time to get to their professors desk. When Sirius and Peter had finally joined up behind Remus, Professor Pike looked up at them. The boys shifted uncomfortably from their positions in front of him, shocked a little bit at the nervousness they hadn't planned on during their meeting last night where they had discussed what they were going to say to their teacher.

"Why do I get the feeling that you're going to ask me something?" Professor Pike stated bluntly, breaking the silence temporarily.

Remus breathed a sigh of relief knowing that now the ice had been broken and they more or less couldn't run. They were stuck, for better or worse. A heavy silence fell back among them. There was the shifting of feet for a moment more, until a voice broke through the silence.

"Well, yes, er, we- well- we-" Sirius nudged James in the side, "Well," he looked up at the ceiling before he continued, "we were wondering if you could give us permission to get into the restricted section of the library."

There was more silence. Deafening beyond anything most of the boys had encountered in their young lives. Then when they were ready to give in and retreat, regroup and try again, Pike laughed. The four stared in shock at their Professor's outburst, and then just as quickly as it had begun it stopped, "No."

They continued to stare at him a while longer while the simple word had processed. When it had registered completely and replayed within Remus mind he felt his heart sink. He could feel everything slipping away… All of the misadventures he'd unconsciously been planning while he'd been alone in the hospital wing, everything. Then he heard the plea from their leader.

"But – but we have an idea, and we need to research it-"

"More pranks I suspect," at the blank look on their faces he went on, "Yes, the other member's of the staff seemed rather inclined to tell me all of your little exertions last year. So the answer is 'no.'"

"It's hardly a prank, sir," Sirius interjected before James shot him a glare.

"We swear it's not for that," James stated as he gave his professor a level glance to show that he wasn't lying and, hopefully, to show his teacher that he wasn't nearly as immature as he had been brainwashed to believe. Professor Pike merely stared at him but said nothing.

"We think that we've discovered a way to help werewolves with their transformations," their professor's brow furrowed slightly.

"We think that if an Anamagus were with them then they would be able to keep their minds. The only problem is that the only books we can get at about Anamagus' only give the definition of the transformations for both of the things we'd have to look up," James sighed deeply in feigned defeat, "See the problem?"

Their professor continued to say nothing as the boys stood, uneasily, before him. Time once again seemed to stop for them. Then, finally, after a long extended pause Professor Pike gave a reluctant sigh, "It's only for research?" the four nodded intently, "Nothing else?"

The question had been directed towards James but his eyes were locked with only Remus's. Remus stared directly at him without faltering. Professor Pike then sighed deeply and nodded briefly to himself, before he turned his attention back to James, "Alright," and with that he pulled out a half piece of parchment and scrawled out the words that would get Madam Pince out of their hair for the rest of the year.

He then handed the small note over to James, who tried his best not to give himself away by grinning too widely or breaking out in a small happy dance, and muttered stiffly, "Why do I have the feeling that I'm going to regret this?"


	13. No Turning Back

Lesson Thirteen: No Turning Back

The smell of stiff yellow-paged books surrounded them as they situated themselves in the middle of their dormitory floor. They sat in a circle facing each other, each with a book in their hands.

James stared at the two in front of him, registering their faces, capturing every moment of what each felt was going to be a landmark in their young lives. He felt the soft binding of the book that was in his own hands before he spoke.

"We did it. Granted it did take us some rustling up our guts to actually check the books out, but we did it," he smiled at his mates, "and when we open these books we have to promise each other that there's no backing out."

He gave them each a level glance, "None, we're in this till the end. For good or bad. This is for Remus." James then opened the book he had in his hands.

Sirius quickly followed suit, "For Remus."

He looked over at Peter, who merely glanced down at the book in his hands, mulling over what James had said and then, finally, opened his too. "For Remus," he mumbled.

* * *

Remus stepped into the Shrieking Shack as the town folk of Hogsmeade had so kindly dubbed. He looked around at the beaten interior, which was even worse off now than it had been last month. He walked over to the living room and examined the empty fireplace as he pulled the blanket Madam Pomfrey had left him tightly around his body.

He could see his breath in the dark room as what little sun was left of the day filtered through the snow-covered windows. He was tempted to light a fire with some of the broken pieces of an old wooden chair that was sprawled haphazardly in a corner, merely feet away from where its partnered desk was, but he knew better than to try. It was better to be cold. Most likely the beast would try to hurl itself into the flames anyway, leaving Remus with the pain to deal with for the week that followed. It was hardly worth the risk for a few minutes of warmth whilst he was still harmless.

So instead of following his human instincts of survival, he merely sat on the beaten couch and stared at the empty fireplace imagining the warmth of flames within the void. The couch was comfy but as he sat, waiting for the worst to come, he couldn't help but wonder why Dumbledore had even bothered to furnish the place. Granted the sounds of crashing furniture filtering through the village late at night did cast some overshadowing rumors of ghosts and goblins but overall, to him, it seemed more of a waste of money than anything else.

He sighed deeply, casting his more cynical thoughts aside and turned his full attention back to the imaginary flames, as he waited patiently for the full moon to do its dastardly work upon him.

* * *

"Hey, guys, look at this."

James tore himself away from his reading and looked up at Sirius. Sirius moved his legs out from underneath him and repositioned his body so everyone could see what he'd found. Peter moved in closer after James had moved to Sirius' right side.

He looked at the book only to see a chart spanning the two pages that were open to him. "What's that?"

Sirius smiled at his friend. "You know how the transformation is based off of personality?" James nodded, "This chart gives you an idea of what you might turn into based on personality and looks. For example: you have glasses, so odds are you may have round markings around your eyes."

"So, I just read that too, that doesn't really deal with what kind of animal I'd be."

Sirius groaned, "No, it doesn't, but here, I'll do me. Quick throw out some things to describe me."

James smiled swiftly and looked over at Peter who appeared to be thinking the same thing. "Well, you're stubborn." James offered first.

"Don't have a conscious."

Sirius glared at Peter, "I do too. It just tends to kick in _after_ I do something."

"You're smart." James continued.

"Brave."

"Clever."

"A smart-ass."

"Easily entertained."

Sirius shot James a glare before he stopped Peter from continuing on with their colorful adjectives. "Thanks guys, I feel loved now."

"Yes, well, you're a good friend." James said quickly, "don't forget that."

Sirius shoved James over, pushing him onto the floor with a chuckle. "Lame." He muttered, as he followed what they said down the chart. "Hmm, most of it leads to a dog."

He smiled once more, "Either a Black Lab or a Great Dane. Maybe I'll be a hybrid-dog-freak-thing."

James laughed, "Yes, because we all want to be hybrid freak-things."

Sirius punched him on the shoulder once more, then, he flipped the page to the other pages of the ongoing chart, carefully seeing if he had missed anything. When he found that he hadn't, he looked back up at James.

"You want to see what you'll be?"

James felt his face light up, "Yeah."

Sirius smiled widely and handed the book over to James as he skimmed over some of the traits that he thought he had. But then, he quickly concluded that it's easy to assess oneself but odds were that they wouldn't do an accurate job. "Give me some traits." He stated with a smile.

Sirius laughed, "You're a leader."

* * *

Remus' body went rigid as the moon's white light glistened through the window behind him. He could feel his heart beat speed up as his chest jutted forward and his knees popped forward, forcing him off of the couch and onto the rough wooden floor.

He cried out in pain as sweat began to run down his face. Once again he was destined to lose his battle with the beast. He felt hot tears of both fear and pain drip down his cheeks as they lurched forward, morphing quickly into a face much unlike his own. A face that belonged to the beast within. The face that he tried so desperately to hide from the world.

His cries echoed within the small building. Slowly escalating, as pleas of a young boy melted into the horrifyingly frantic yelps of an injured animal… the hidden beast…

And Remus J. Lupin was left behind in the madness.

* * *

"A stag?"

"Or an owl – but you only scored three for that." Sirius commented bluntly at the disappointed look on his friend's face.

"Right, but I'm nothing like either of those. I get the impression of a stuck-up-brute- that's not me." James sighed, "Maybe it's wrong."

Peter stared at him, mulling over whether or not he should speak what was on his mind or not. He knew a little about stags because of his uncle's taste in hunting. "Er, James," James looked over at Peter as if he had forgotten he was there, "er, stags aren't that bad."

James stared at him like he had lost his mind, "They get hit by muggle automubbles."

Peter shook his head, "No, my uncle said that way back when, in the renaissance, if someone killed a stag they could be sentenced to death. They were considered royalty, a symbol of wealth. Granted, people don't think like that anymore but it is a cool fact."

James registered Peter's words as a grin played at his lips.

"Got that! You're royalty! I'm just a mangy dog. You- you- well, if someone kills you they should be killed, I can't say the same for my animal."

James just laughed at Sirius' worlds. It was certainly an interesting concept but he'd probably never have to use it, considering the times. Plus, with his father's profession it made some sort of sense.

He placed the book on the floor and looked back up at the two of them before he zeroed in on Peter. The boy shifted slightly under his gaze.

"Do you want to see what you'll be?"

Peter looked up at James. Yes, he knew that there was no turning back but he also didn't want to know what he'd be. It'd only egg them on more and then he'd have to come face to face with a werewolf. A vicious man-eating beast. He shivered slightly at the thought before he shook his head.

"No, I'd rather be surprised. It makes it more fun."

* * *

Blood dripped on the wooden floor, wet and warm. The taste was salty in its mouth. The crimson trail lead up to the bedroom leading to the monster as it fought desperately to get the human within. To dismember its body and rip apart the tender meat, a fine meal for any member of their elite beast society.

But every attack by the brutal beast left a swift whimper and an angered howl in its wake. Every bite left the beast in confused pain as the human it knew was there refused to scream or bleed pure blood. Instead it seemed to attack the beast with every bite it issued upon itself.

It whined loudly as pain seared through its mangled body as it moved tiredly into the bedroom. It breathed heavily as its vision blurred in and out. The beast howled loudly as it lunged at its backend and sunk its sharp blood covered teeth into the already tattered flesh.

More whining erupted from its muzzle, as it quickly let go of the meat. Instant pain shivered through its limbs forcing its back legs into protest from the new beating that had just been inflicted upon it. The weakened limbs swiftly buckled and collapsed from underneath it. The exposed flesh burned madly as it met the rough floorboards. The wolf stared up at the bed angered by its defeat, while the dark room filtered in and out of focus until all was black.

Silence echoed loudly throughout the room where the beast laid quiet, broken. Defeated by only itself, until it would have another go in the full moonlight. Silenced for now.

The moonlight faded with the coming day and the beast once again became hidden within the unfortunate boy. Its home, its only friend, and its one true enemy.


	14. A Fairly Traditional Christmas

Lesson Fourteen: A Fairly Traditional Christmas

Once Remus had recovered from his injuries he returned to his classes. The weeks then slowly began to creep along. His friends had continued to study the Anamagus transformations when they had the time to but with the holidays approaching, they were finding it harder to find such time. Despite the setback of many last-minute essays before the students would leave, Remus was glad to see that his friends were still as gung-ho about the idea as they were when they first began to do it.

Aside from the few transformation study times the boys had done, they did indeed spend most of their time studying for last minute tests. For the vast majority of the teachers had opted to give their students exams before the winter break had began. Which, in essence, provided many headaches for the young pupils within the school.

In between the tests and Anamagi studying, the four had, surprisingly for them, eventually found the time to pack up their stuff so that they could leave because they were all actually going to go home for the holiday. So, whilst they fixed up their trunks so that they could go home, the excitement grew within most of them. Only Sirius was left complaining about leaving the castle. He would mutter foul words every so often to himself, as they packed, about how horrid the Black's were. All the while he would throw his shirts, pants, and socks haphazardly into his trunk for his two-week stay at home. Or rather "in hell" as he so compassionately put it.

Other than Sirius' bitter thoughts about going home, everyone else in the school was busy with talk of family and presents as the day that they would be leaving rapidly approached. Then, before too long, they found themselves aboard the Hogwarts Express heading for the countless said destinations that had been uttered through the hall continuously during the previous week.

When the train arrived at King's Cross the boys quickly piled out and set out looking for their parents. James found his father first and quickly introduced him to Remus and Peter before his father looked down at his watch and stated that they had to go if they were going to catch the portkey to Dresden because James and his family were going to visit his aunt in Germany rather than staying in London for the holiday, like James would have preferred.

Sirius didn't stay to wish his mates a farewell when he got off of the train. He merely spotted his parents and walked his funeral march over to them. Most likely in a bizarre form of self-defense so that he could protect himself from any foul comments from his parents while he was at home, because Remus was pretty sure, as he watched his friend walk off, that his parents would have made sure to do some damage, either emotionally or physically, to him if they had seen him with James or any of his mates for that matter.

Remus was then dragged over to Peter's parents and was instantly introduced excitedly to the two adults. Peter's parents were friendly enough, Remus noted as they spoke of how nice he and his other mates were to Peter. Remus smiled as he noted to himself that Peter's mother was particularly short and rather average looking in most respects, whereas his father was short and thin and was a fairly, overall, mousy looking man. Remus stayed polite during the brief encounter, putting his mother's manners to work before he bid them farewell and met up with his own family who were gathered at the other end of the platform.

His mother hugged him tightly when he joined up with them, "I was beginning to worry that you'd forgotten to get on the train."

He heard a snort come from his cousin but ignored it.

"Just saying goodbye to my mates."

Again he heard a small chortle from his cousin as his father stated that they should probably start heading home.

When they finally arrived home all Remus could do was smile. Lupin lodge was just as he had left it. It was still as cozy as ever, and smelled of his mother's baking. Everything was exactly as he remembered it, he thought absentmindedly to himself as if he'd expected everything to change whilst he was gone. But as he had found last year during Christmas break, and also when he'd gotten home for the summer holiday, it was a silly idea. This was his home and things wouldn't have changed so drastically by him just leaving it.

He'd spent the first few days catching up with his family, bothering his father in his study as he worked out some of the papers he had stacked up from work. Or he would help his mum in the kitchen, and when he wasn't doing either of those things he would play countless games (mainly exploding snap) with Kara. When he needed some alone time he'd go up to his room and read or play his guitar. He discovered that these were aspects of life that he'd missed while being wrapped up in the busy world of school.

Then on Christmas Eve, the Lupin's went out in search of a tree. They cut it down the traditional way and used magic to carry it home. Remus laughed openly once they had reached the house when they had discovered that the tree was a little too big to be able to fit through their front door. The family often joked that this too was a tradition.

"Shrink it, dad." Remus called out from the back of the tree as he pushed its end a bit to try and shove it through the door.

"Shrink it! But it's far too nice to shrink."

Remus smiled widely and stopped pushing on the trunk, "Then you get it in the house."

He heard his mother laugh and Edmund slowly pulled out his wand before he finally did as his son had asked. The tree shrunk to the size of a small fur tree. Edmund then picked it up with one hand and dragged it inside.

"Get the tree stand."

His mother came back a few seconds later with the item. She placed it on the floor and his father put the tree in the stand. Edmund then told his wife to hold onto the small tree, and for Remus and Kara to help her and do the same, before he could cast the reverse spell and let the tree grow in size until it was just shy enough from the ceiling to fit the star cozily on top. He then relieved his wife and kids from their duties and let Gwen screw the hooks on the stand into the base of the tree so that they would hold it up.

He smiled at the tree and cast a small warming charm on it so that the branches would fall in less time and they could decorate it later that night. After this small task was done the family scattered to their own areas of the house and bid their time in whatever way they felt fit.

Remus retreated to his room after he had refused to go to Diagon Alley with his mum and cousin, who were going to get the last few gifts for the next day. He had told them simply that he just wanted to stay home and left his mum a small note with the items he had wanted to get his mates for Christmas, along with the addresses to owl the assorted items too. His mother had laughed when she'd looked over the short list and soon after left with Kara, leaving Remus to his own activities.

Up in his room his found that everything was in order, aside from some of the stray textbooks he'd left out from the night before, his bookshelf had a few new additions he had put away when he'd first gotten back home, that his father had sent him over the periods that he had been sick at school. All of which had already been read a few times. He sighed deeply to himself before he walked over to the other side of his room and collected the second hand guitar and tuned it. He carefully gained the feel of the familiar strings and slowly began to strum random cords before he found a set that he liked together and set it to repeat, only playing variations of the cords every few measures or so.

It didn't take long after that for words to start to filter in as the music danced within his loft. He stayed like that for a long while, as he lost track of time, only stopping every so often to write down something that had come to mind while he played.

"That's beautiful."

Remus jumped at the sound of Kara's voice. He looked at her only to find a solemn face. He set his guitar back into its stand and looked back at his cousin expecting her to say something else.

"I wish I could play like that."

"Lock yourself in your room with it and you'll probably get it down." Remus stated with his typical melancholy humor.

"Right, I don't have the patience for that. And besides, Uncle Edmund helped."

Remus nodded. It was true; his father had taught him how to play. But since then the years had opted to play devil's advocate on the elder Lupin's hands and he rarely touched the old guitar now.

"Your mum wants you to go downstairs. We're decorating the tree now."

Remus smiled widely and the two raced down the stairs without another word being uttered. The ornaments were strewn across the living room as Gwen told them which boxes she wanted on the tree. The two set to work as their parents watched more from the sidelines enjoying themselves as they watched the kids work.

When they had finished with the brightly colored bulbs Edmund took the honor of placing the star on the top. They stood back and looked at the tree, a true tribute to the past, for nothing on it dated past 1940.

Gwen then told the children to get ready for bed. They did as they were told leaving to get their pajamas on and then rushed up the stairs. They disappeared into Remus' bedroom where they situated themselves on his bed. His mother, soon after, came up with "The Night Before Christmas" held firmly in her hands and sat down beside the two children and read. It seemed that no matter how old they got this would always be a part of the tradition as well.

When she had finished the story she kissed each of them on the forehead and left them to their own devices. They were quiet for only a few minutes as they fidgeted a bit on the bed trying their best to get comfortable as they lounged against the pillows.

"So," Remus stated suddenly becoming a little uncomfortable with the silence.

"So what?"

Remus grinned a bit to himself at the expected reply, only to find that he really had everything and nothing to "so" at all at the same time. For despite the fact that they had spent a lot of time together as of late he really hadn't gotten the proper time to catch up with her.

"How's school?"

"Cool."

He groaned slightly, "Anything in particular that you like."

"The castle's cool." Remus chuckled, "Defense is easy and Professor Pike is wicked. He covers everything really well even though I could probably zone out with most of the stuff he talks about and still pass with a high grade." She smiled proudly to herself before she looked over at Remus, "You?"

"It's the same as last year. Pranks, homework…" he stopped briefly before he continued, "friends."

Kara smiled gloomily knowing what he wanted to avoid, "Yeah, well that's good considering you loved it last year. It's good that it didn't change this year. And I'll have you know that you described everything to me perfectly. It's exactly how I imagined it would be."

"Is it now?"

She nodded and rested her head on his pillow, "Yeah, and I've got friends too. Alexial's really nice even though she's a year older than me and spends most of her time reading than talking, that is unless she gets too stocked up on caffeine, then she's real talkative." She smiled, "Aunt Gwen said that she could stay over this summer like Sirius did, if it'd be okay with her parents."

"That'd be cool. Alexial's nice."

Kara gave him a confused glance before she recalled what he'd said the last time they'd really talked, "Oh, Astronomy partner." She laughed a bit to herself.

"What?"

"Nothing." he cocked an eyebrow at her, "Okay, it's just that in a lot of ways she's like you. Shy, until you get her to open up, loves to read and write, is relatively good at school. Overall just nice to be around."

Remus smiled widely at the complement his cousin offered and yawned widely afterwards. He shut his eyes to give them some rest, "Thanks."

"No problem."

He heard a yawn come from beside him as his cousin slowly began to talk about some of the things she'd gotten into and the assorted things she talked about with her mates in Ravenclaw until the words slowly began to dissipate into grunts, which were transformed into soft sighs as the two gradually talked themselves into sleep.

* * *

Remus woke up and smiled at his cousin who was still asleep at his side. He carefully sat up from his bed so as to not wake Kara up and silently walked down the wooden stairs to the kitchen where his mum was making breakfast.

"Good morning, honey," she greeted as he walked over to her so that he could stand by her side.

"Can I help?"

His mother nodded and told him to man the frying pan that was full of eggs while she pre-panned the homemade rolls. They worked together until the remainder of the house awoke and soon breakfast was served. After they had finished the exquisite meal they moved into the living room where piles of presents were stacked up under the tree.

Remus smiled as he picked up a present and handed one to each member of the family before he sat back down on the couch. On the count of three they opened the items in unison. All with smiling faces, as they showed off their gifts to one another before they placed them on a pile beside them.

And so it went until only three packages remained. Remus, once again, handed out the presents until he had none left for himself. He sat down on the couch, mildly disappointed that he hadn't one extra gift to open like everyone else.

"Oh, wait. I have to get something." Kara quickly scrambled to her room.

Remus felt himself roll his eyes at her as she disappeared around the corner. When she returned he felt his mouth drop. He didn't have to open it to know what it was.

She set the item down on his lap and he felt his hands glide over the object. He looked up at her, "You shouldn't have."

Kara blushed slightly, "Open it."

Remus just stared at her like she was mad before he opened the case. It was perfect. He'd been eyeing it in the muggle music store for the last year or so. A new guitar, a Gibson, it was perfect in every way, and also rather expensive.

He felt tears come to his eyes, "You really shouldn't have."

Kara only smiled, "Well, it's not like I paid for it all by myself and besides I wanted to get it for you over the summer but Aunt Gwen said that it wasn't the right time."

"Play something," his mother prompted.

Remus looked up at his mum as his hands gently plucked the strings. He took the guitar out of its case, placed the case on the floor amongst the wrapping paper, and slowly played for her. He smiled as he changed to simple cords slowly playing whatever tickled his fancy until he stopped when he felt that the song should come to an end. He smiled widely at them, loving Kara more than anything else at that moment.

He then slipped the guitar back into its case. "Thank you," was all he could manage.

Kara nodded her head at him, "No problem."

He watched her as she played some of her new Magi-Music discs, softly singing with the songs that were being played through the WWW, vowing that he would try to be kinder to her in the future, providing that Sirius didn't somehow ambush his good intentions. He smiled slightly at the thought of his friend and all of the beliefs he had fabricated about his cousin over the time he had spent at Lupin Lodge. _If only he really knew her, he'd understand some of her more colorful moments_, Remus thought to himself.

There was a tap on the window that pulled Remus away from his thoughts. He stared for a while at the small being before it fully registered in his head what it was. He quickly stood from his seat and opened the window letting the little brown owl in. He promptly relieved the familiar bird of its burden as Kara stared at him somewhat confused by the sight of the owl.

Remus unrolled the parchment and scanned the small badly scrawled letter.

_Remus,_

_I have something to tell you, but I can't really put it in this letter. I'll have to tell it to you on the train. But I will say this: Some really strange stuff is happening and I don't just think it's a fluke. I'll explain it later, I promise. _

_May dad's coming now. I've got to go. _

_Sincerely, _

_James Potter_

Remus stared at the words of warning before he finally looked up at his cousin who appeared to be unsuccessfully reading his facial expression. He looked deep into her green eyes and felt a small shiver run down his spine at the memory of the newspaper article and James' first few words about the oddness that the general magical public knew nothing about, and knew somehow this note was also tied to that topic.

A sense of dread fell over him as he shoved the piece of parchment into his pocket and offered to play some chess with Kara, knowing, all the while as they set the board up for a game, that this was only the beginning.


	15. The Mark

Lesson Fifteen: The Mark

Remus had soon forgotten the mysterious letter after he had spent the majority of his time wandering through his beloved woods and having countless snowball fights that lasted until dusk with his cousin. Only once during his last week at home did he revisit the note, and that was when he had found it in the pair of pants that he had placed it in come laundry day. When he had found it he had simply taken the piece of paper out and merely tossed it away, not wanting to be bothered with it until he absolutely had to be.

Yet now, he knew it was coming, as he shuffled a deck of cards so he could play slapjack with Kara. He knew that as soon as the others had boarded the train he'd have to talk about it. James wouldn't let him not talk about it; it simply wasn't in his nature.

"I win," he stated in a bored manner when the last card had been taken.

"Best two out of three."

Remus was about to protest when he was interrupted.

"Thank God I'm free!"

Sirius sauntered into the room smiling all excited like someone who had been at sea for years and had finally managed to get on real land again. Remus chuckled as the image of Sirius kissing the train's floor came to his mind, but quickly flitted away as his friend went on, "I swear, if I had to hear one more thing about how bloody disgraceful I am I'd have to kill someone."

He then plopped himself down beside Kara and smiled nonchalantly at Remus. "How was your Chrimbo?"

"Brilliant, got everything I wanted and then some, but it was really nice to just be home," he smirked slightly to himself, "and not have it be during the full moon."

"I assume you got a letter too."

Remus only nodded. Sirius accepted what that meant and went on to bug Kara about her Christmas activities until Peter came in, holding the letter James had given him in his right hand as if he'd just read it. He then plopped himself down next to Sirius, squeezing Kara against the window.

They sat in silence for a long while before James showed up and made himself comfortably next to Remus. He said nothing at first and then: "Everybody have a nice holiday? Mine was cold and boring for the most part. I didn't have anyone my own age to talk with."

Sirius laughed, "Yes, well, that happens when you're the youngest member of your very small family. All I heard the whole time I was at Grimmauld Place was: 'You disgraceful little (insert word here)! Why can't you ever do what we ask? (Insert word here, yet again.)'" He smirked bitterly to himself before he went on.

"It was great fun. But I loved it best when they acted like I wasn't right in front of them, because then I heard things like: 'Maybe we can get him resorted.' Then that was typically followed by, 'It's never been done before he is simply a black mark on the family name.' Which only made me laugh because the last name is Black and how does someone put a visible 'black mark' on black. They didn't think I was clever and sent me to my room for the remainder of the holiday."

"Well, I'm sorry your holiday was so horrible."

Sirius glared at Kara and opened his mouth to retort but Remus cut him off before he got the chance, "So, you didn't get…"

"No, he only does that when I do something particularly bad or he's simply drunk off his rocker. Overall, honestly, it doesn't happen that much."

"It shouldn't happen at all."

Sirius said nothing in return. James frowned at the two, before he opted to get straight to business. "Did you all get my letters?"

The three nodded as Kara watched them intently from her crammed position across from her cousin. James stared at them, slowly choosing his words.

"I over heard my dad talking over the floo network. I'm not sure who he was talking to exactly but I think it may have been Mad-Eye. Anyway, whoever it was said that they'd found more bodies. Three more bodies. No names were given, but they were killed the same way as the others. My dad said that if they ever figure out what the hex is it'll become a new unspeakable."

He looked them all in the face only to find that each of them was impassable except for Peter who had gone ashen at the news. He continued, "But there was something else, a mark, on the forearm of one of the victims."

James then pulled out a piece of parchment from his bag and placed it on the table. The others leaned in to look at it. Remus was fascinated with the drawing that had been haphazardly doodled on the page. It was disturbing to say the least, a skull with a snake entwined throughout the open cracks and crevasses until the head slithered out of the mouth.

"Cool." Kara stated blankly.

James cocked an eyebrow at her bluntness but chose to ignore it. "It's got to mean something."

The four sat in silence as Remus contemplated the drawing before him. He heard Peter squeak worriedly from his corner and saw Kara fidgeting slightly in her own seat, blowing, at least for him, her tough outer face she had just put on.

Then Sirius broke the silence, "I think I've seen that before." Four sets of eyes met his, "What? Met my family? They're evil." He shut his mouth for a second as he stared at the drawing, "I can't remember where I've seen it, but there's something _familiar_ about it."

Remus looked back down at the drawing and felt his entire body seemingly go numb as the vacant eyes stared back at him. The silence in the room grew eerie as the dark picture continued to gaze, unseeingly, up at them.

"What do you think it means?"

Remus looked up from the drawing across from him where the voice had come from. He noticed the look of mild determination on his cousin's face and in her eyes a glimmer of worry. She looked at him, only for a brief moment before she turned her attention back to James.

"I don't know. The Auror seemed to have some ideas but my aunt pulled me away from the door before I could hear any of them."

Kara shifted a bit in her seat, unsure if she liked this news or not, when Sirius spoke up. "It's probably a cult."

"A killing cult?" Peter squeaked.

"It's pretty typical of cults to go on killing sprees. They probably do other things too, but yes, for now I guess that's how they'd appear."

"If that's indeed what they do." Peter pressed.

Sirius only nodded at the boy's comments, "You said the mark was on his forearm," James nodded, "well, usually marks like that mean something. Maybe he didn't do something the leader wanted or, for that matter, liked and he was killed for it."

"Or maybe it's just a cool tattoo." Kara stated bluntly, no longer wanting to discuss James' discovery.

"Perhaps, but you can't dismiss all the ideas." James stated fairly, "Maybe when the Auror's figure it out it'll make the paper."

Remus shivered a bit at the thought. With any luck the man with the tattoo would only be another ordinary victim. For if this grew to the depth that Sirius had suggested, things would get a lot worse before they happened to get better.

"Hey, Remmy," Remus focused in on his cousin and the dreadful nickname that lingered in the air, "here."

She handed him a card and he flipped up the face, an ace. He then stared at the others, all now with their own cards, "Werewolves of Bray Road?" he asked.

Kara nodded her head and explained the roles of each of the cards and how they had to find the "werewolf" among them before the whole "village had been eaten alive." Once all had gotten the gist of the roles of their character cards they set to playing. They played until the train reached the end of its trek to Hogsmeade.

Once the train had finally stopped the five boarded off of the train and headed to the awaiting carriages. Kara stared opened mouthed at the beasts pulling the stagecoach until Remus came up behind her, "They won't hurt you."

He then hoisted her up into the coach and followed her into it with the others behind him until they squeezed themselves into the tight space. The carriages, pulled by seemingly nothing to all but one, slowly began to creep up the cobbled path up to Hogwarts with an almost full room hanging dimly up above them in the dark night sky.


	16. Confessional

Lesson Sixteen: Confessional

Kara bolted up in her bed. Her face was cold and wet with sweat and her breathing was heavy as she glanced around her room. The other members of her dorm were still fast asleep and she let out a slow breath, knowing that at least she could rest easy on that front. She would have hated explaining away this occurrence to the people she happened to share a room with.

She closed her eyes softly and let out a breath as the images of her nightmare flitted back to the surface of her mind. Flashes of her illusions of the past mixed in with new "memories" that her mind had opted to add to the on going stash of unpleasant thoughts that, on occasion, plagued her in her sleep.

Kara opened her eyes once more and quietly got out of her bed, too afraid to go back to sleep. She sighed deeply as she opened the door to the hallway and slowly made her way out of the Ravenclaw common room.

Once outside she wandered down the hallway and a flight of stairs until she was in the hospital wing. She then snuck into Madam Pomfrey's room as quietly as she could. Kara walked over to the wall and tapped the bricks in their order until they opened to the separate room.

When she was inside, she saw Remus lying, asleep as if he were dead, battered and bruised. Even though she had seen him in worse conditions at home she knew all too well that he hated having anyone see him in this state, relation or friend, it didn't matter. But, at that moment, despite his silent wishes and his obvious situation, Kara could have cared less about his desires.

She then walked over to his bedside and sat down next to him in the chair that Madam Pomfrey most likely had used only a few hours before. Kara sighed deeply, as tears began to fall while her nightmare came back to her mind. _Why am I here?_ She wondered to herself as she looked at Remus' tattered form.

"I'm sorry I've intruded on your space."

The words that came out shocked her for she hadn't actually expected to say anything at all. She looked at his face as the words settled awkwardly within the abyss of the room before she went on, "I'm having those nightmares again. I know you probably don't care, but I'm scared. I haven't had them in ages, I was glad they were gone. I mean, who would want to see any of that," she sighed deeply, "I'm scared. S o if I'm bothering you by being here, tough, because I need to be here right now, you help me sort things out."

She bent her head down in shame at her confession. The room fell into silence and in the midst of this state Kara was shocked when she felt her hand get squeezed ever so slightly. She looked up from her lap and met Remus' eyes where were bloodshot from his battle with himself the night before. He had a soft smile set upon his face and despite the dreadful tears on Kara's face she felt herself return the gesture.

He squeezed her hand again only this time more tightly, "I know you're scared, hell, I am too."

"Then tell your friends to stop snooping."

Remus chortled a bit at the comment, "They won't," his voice was raspy and it strained him just to speak but he went on anyway, "maybe it's good that they are. Perhaps, we'll get a heads up if things get worse."

Kara rolled her eyes, hating that Remus would side with James and Sirius on this and not with her, even if she knew he would side with them even before she had said anything. Besides, she could hardly understand how getting a heads up on a freak that kills people for fun would help. In the long run, a bunch of twelve year olds and one eleven year old could hardly stop someone like that.

Remus watched his cousin's face contort in thought, knowing full well what she was thinking, "We won't be able to stop him but isn't it somewhat comforting to know what this guy is doing? At least then we can figure out if he does in fact have some insane master plan."

"I think killing people and leaving the bodies with marks on them is enough information."

"That was only one-"

"But there's been others!" Kara cried out at once killing whatever argument could come out of Remus mouth before he even had the chance to get it out, "Others that I-" she felt a fresh batch of tears come and fall full force from her green eyes.

Remus didn't know what to say to her tears_. "It's going to be okay,"_ seemed to be an empty promise that he knew he couldn't keep, so rather than saying anything at all he merely squeezed her hand as the tears welled up in his own eyes at the sight of this broken girl before him, "I know."

Kara stared at his gray eyes knowing that he meant his comforting squeeze. She felt the tug of even more tears on her eyes as the words she had wanted to say cracked in her throat before they could fully escape. She could feel Remus' intense stare on her face and found his attentiveness oddly comforting.

Remus didn't know what to say to help his cousin with her thoughts so he simply watched for an opening in which he could give her the only thing he had, comfort. As he continued to stare at her, trying his best to come up with something of substance to say to her he felt his neck tighten with the added pressure from craning his neck on the pillow sending the first signals for the beginning of pain.

He felt a tear finally escape from his own eyes as he squeezed her hand once more; hoping against all hopes that that would be enough to fill the void his lack of words had left in their wake. He smiled weakly at her. As he did so he took his hand away for a slight moment. The instant that he broke contact with Kara she burst into uncontrollable sobs.

Remus continued to say nothing as she cried. Knowing that it was good for her to get it all out of her system. Knowing full well that this was really the only reason she had sought him out in the first place.

He rubbed her hand with his thumb, ignoring the pain it left in his wrist and shoulders, as the potions he had taken earlier proved finally that they had officially worn out. Kara then wiped her eyes and chuckled slightly to herself, "I'm being stupid."

Remus smirked slightly at the comment disagreeing silently with her words. He sighed deeply as his mind continued to reel over the bad news James had brought them earlier that week on the train. He shook his head slightly at the thought and turned his attention back to his cousin, only to be greeted with a clearly blank expression. He knew what she was thinking and was mildly surprised to find that it hurt him to realize this.

He continued to watch her for a long while until the pain in his craned neck became too much to bear and he felt his consciousness fade. He managed to give his cousin's hand one last tug before the black dots that were flickering in front of his eyes took over and all went black. Ultimately, leaving Kara alone to her thoughts.

The room went eerily quiet as Kara looked upon Remus' now limp form. She stared at him and felt her earlier thoughts resurface in her mind like crashing waves. She then, overtook by the force of the unwanted images, began to cry silently to herself in the darkness still holding onto Remus' hand until she too closed her eyes and rested her head against Remus' chest, and slowly slipped mercifully into a dreamless sleep.


	17. Unaware

Lesson Seventeen: Unaware

Remus sat in the back of the classroom away from his friends as he copied the homework he had missed during his week of absence. His friends had helped him greatly by letting him copy their notes when he was still in the hospital wing, but he'd only gotten through Defense, Transfiguration, and Astronomy in between the potion-induced naps in the infirmary.

He stared up at the back of the room, ten minutes since the bell had rung, and still no Lamia. He smiled to himself; there was still hope. He looked back down at his copying, ignoring the fact that he knew nothing of the drawings and names on the five pages he and managed to scrawl out, he heard the door opened and the brisk, yet graceful, footsteps of Professor Lamia sounded throughout the room. Remus groaned inwardly at the parchment roll of unfinished work. One foot left. And even though Lamia knew of his illness, he also knew that having access to the homework and notes meant that they should be done by the time he had gotten out of the hospital ward- according to her.

He glared unconsciously at his professor hating and dreading whatever snide comment she would throw at him when she finally noticed he had not finished the work she'd assigned. When she reached the front of the room she slammed a newspaper on her desk, unnecessarily, making the students around the area jump uneasily at the unexpected sound. Remus smiled to himself when he saw James turn around in confusion at their teacher's opening of the class.

Remus just shrugged at his friend, not knowing the answers to the unasked question, while Lamia began to shout out instructions to the class, which instantly went into the usual scene of note-taking. He took the notes down for his new and more complicated potion ("Which we will make on Wednesday") while the professor's voice shook unsteadily while she spoke. Remus watched intently as she paced at the front of the room as she went on with the notes. There was most definitely something different about her demeanor; yet try as he did, he couldn't really place what it was.

When they had finished with the notes Lamia set them to working on their assignment, which was unfortunately three times longer than usual. Yet, rather than start on the extremely long assignment, Remus casually flipped to the remaining homework he had and started working on finishing that instead. As he worked he occasionally looked up to see where at his Professor was lurking, not wanting to get caught in his illicit actions. She passed twice along his side within the Double period but she didn't seem to notice him flip the page to the blank sheet of paper… something that would _never_ have gone unnoticed on any normal day.

Remus finished the older assignment shortly before the bell rang. Then took a little time to try and comprehend any of the things he had written only to realize immediately that it was worthless. But he kept at it because it made it appear that he was working on his assignment rather than actually trying to catch up to his classmates in the curriculum.

When the bell finally did ring he gathered his books up, taking one last look at his mysterious teacher, and noticed that she was looking at the same paper that she had brought in with her. Her face was set in worry and Remus felt his brow furrow as he gazed distractedly at her.

When he finally realized that the classroom was empty he felt his face flush with embarrassment. He then quickly turned around and left the room leaving his make up assignment on his workbench. He smiled weakly at his mates once he had gotten out into the hallway only to receive a small smile from James in return. Then in silence they wandered up to the great hall for lunch.

Once inside and seated Remus began to eat his small meal all the while thinking of the worried expression on his typically stone-faced teacher. If she was worried, whatever was in that paper could not have been good. He sighed deeply, as he stared at his friends, he could not place the source of the feeling in his stomach. Remus felt cold and lonely by Professor Lamia's reaction to whatever the news might have been.

"How far did you get on the assignment?" Remus blinked a bit at Sirius' question.

"I finished it." Peter stated bluntly.

Remus didn't really have to look up at Sirius to know that there was shock being vividly displayed upon his face. He himself let a groan out at Peter's comment.

"Well then Pete, you don't have to rub if in." James replied with his mouth half full of bread, "We can't all be geniuses."

Remus laughed slightly at the irony in the comment. But rather than joining in on their ramblings he continued to eat his meal.

Without any real notice to his other mates that he wasn't speaking Remus fell into his own thoughts. Racking his brain for some idea of any slight late breaking news that could have been in the paper. Because no matter how many other excuses he could come up with for his professor's lax in her usual teaching it always went back to the paper. What on earth was in that paper? Was a relative dead? He highly doubted a death of a family member could cause Lamia much grief. A new law that said she must treat all her students equally? A smile began to play at Remus' lips. However great such a law would be it would either be broken by the Potions Mistress or at the very least would kill her.

So what was it? As Remus' mind wondered further down this path, hi s ideas grew more ridiculous than the last. Maybe his friends had neglected to tell him some life changing news that had happened that week. But then that would hardly explain James' apparent confusion.

He groaned as Sirius snapped his fingers in front of his face, "You take a quick trip to the moon?"

"Hardly, I quite prefer the Bahamas."

James and Sirius both laughed a bit at that while Peter just stared stupidly at the three of them not completely hearing or understanding Remus' comment. Remus just laughed at Peter and shoveled the last bit of his food into his mouth.

"So what do you think about Lamia." James asked either assuming that was what was on his mind or continuing the conversation they had obviously wanted him to join.

Remus just shrugged his shoulders, "I don't know. Maybe she earned a soul and doesn't know what to do with it."

James just shook his head, "Doesn't explain the newspaper."

They fell into silence once more. Remus poked at the middle of his empty bowl as the others ate. Each in so far in their own thoughts that they didn't even notice the young Ravenclaw in their presence until she kindly started to clear her throat to gain their attention.

Remus was the first to look up and actually send a greeting her way. She just nodded to him slightly uncomfortably at the gesture. In return Remus merely grinned at her. He knew her well enough from some of the assorted classes they had together. He smiled awkwardly at her until James spoke up.

"Do you have something you wish to say to us Gryffindors, Miss Mune?"

Alexial smiled widely not offended by his tone knowing full well that it was more apart of James' outward ego than him being sincerely ruffled by her being there. So she casually turned her attention to Remus, rather than James, and spoke strongly yet still, underneath her firm tone, she seemed uneasy. "Kara wanted to give this to you this morning but she, er, didn't feel very good after breakfast was through."

Remus raised an eyebrow at his partner in Astronomy and watched intently as she held out a folded clipping from the Daily Prophet. He took it from her, while she smiled uneasily at him and muttered, "I guess I'll see you in Astronomy then."

Remus only nodded at her as she walked away.

"What was that about?" Sirius asked quickly, while, Peter voiced an unneeded chuckle.

Remus shrugged his shoulders slightly at the comment. And with the dumb smile still on his face he unfolded the clipping with three sets of eyes on him. He felt his smile fade immediately and every ounce of blood in his body rush to his feet as the headline registered fully in his head.

He watched concern register in his friend's faces but the words they uttered didn't seem to reach his ears. Then he glanced back down at the headline, the words blurred together. James had been right about what'd he'd overheard.

Remus looked back up at his friends as his mind wandered hopelessly over memories of the past. The world began to blend together and then suddenly everything went black.


	18. Quick Accusations

Lesson Eighteen: Quick Accusations

Remus felt as if his whole world had begun to crash and burn at the sight of that paper. Upon reflection, all he could really recall was that the last month had passed much like a hand being run through cold molasses. Yet, of all the events that had come to pass, he remembered not his transformation, nor how they had managed to "accidentally" lock Snape in the confines of Filch's closet for two hours. Of all the things that had happened, it was the foolish run up to the Ravenclaw common room and his mad dash up to the girls' dormitory where he'd managed to get up about ten steps before they leveled out into a makeshift slide and forced gravity to push him back to the floor below that he remembered most clearly. He also remembered screaming that he needed to see Kara and then having a firm, yet gentle hand on his shoulder that offered a comforting touch. He had looked up from the hand and had been mildly surprised to see Alexial with her features set in worry. Her eyes stated only that she understood (to the best of her ability) and also knew that if he didn't tell her what was going on, even if she truly wanted to know, that it was alright.

He also remembered, among the haziness, crying out right before Alexial and everyone else that was in the common room, and how when he had finally gained his composure to deal with the fact that he could not be with Kara he had left. He had left without a thank you to Alexial for her comfort, and walked a very lonely trek to his own common room on the other side of the castle. Once he had arrived inside the sanctuary of his dorm he had said nothing to his mates and they had said nothing in return to him about him rushing out of the Great Hall. After those few hours everything else had become a ridiculous mess that could only be described as a paced rush.

Overall, he assumed he had handled the sequence of events as well as he could have been expected to, what with being twelve and all.

He stared at the front of the classroom, lost in reflection, as he often was when he was in potions class. He watched intently as Snape casually sucked up to the short man with the shaggy beard that was teaching class. Professor Ebersold had taken the temporary place of Professor Lamia. And even though the replacement was generally fairer with the way he conducted the class, Remus couldn't help but want his conniving teacher to return, even if she did act as though she despised him. He sighed deeply as the tiny man went on with his lecture about some new potion Remus knew he wouldn't get, and jotted down the effects that had been magicked upon the board.

Professor Lamia had been seen leaving the castle the day the article had been posted, practically right after their own class had ended. And she had had good reason too, for Remus noted later that one of the names that had been printed in the article, a name belonging to one of the dead…

Kirik Lamia.

Remus could only imagine what had run through his teacher's head when she'd read the name. He knew not whether it was a brother, father, or spouse to her and he neither wanted confirmation in this aspect nor did he even really care. He merely felt for the person he had once (and more than likely would again) wanted dead. For losing someone was never easy.

He heard the bell ring somewhere in the corner of his mind, amidst the ranting of their substitute professor. He blinked hazily as he returned from his melancholy thoughts and stood up from his seat, gathered up his books before he left the room to join his friends.

He slowly made his way across the hall to the window where his mates were gathered talking over something in a hushed manner. Remus smirked slightly as he drew closer to their small group thinking of the things they could be talking about or the possible trouble they could be concocting. Though once he entered his ring of friends they merely looked up at him and smiled. Remus returned the gesture, "What's up?"

James eyes shifted from Remus to Sirius. Remus felt his brow cock upward before he spoke, "What is it?"

Sirius sighed deeply, "The article."

Remus just stared at him, "What about it?"

"Well, we were thinking that maybe we could go to the library and check out the archives of the old Daily Prophets to see if there are any vague references to this people killing freak. Because, as we've said before, things like this have to start somewhere."

Remus just stared at them blankly. Somehow he had known this would happen and now that it had come up he didn't know how to react, "Why?" was all he could manage.

"Because it's interesting."

He stared at Sirius as if he'd spoken in a foreign tongue, "But it's pointless. There are countless Daily Prophets and who knows how many years back you'll have to go. There is a reason they're called 'Daily Prophets;' they come out every day!"

James shook his head at his friend, mildly frustrated with the expected rejection, "Exactly why we should get all of us working on it. The more people we have the more 'days' we can cover. Besides it can't be much more than fifteen years back, heck it could possibly be less even. If we have everyone on a year we could get tons covered even if we just scanned the headlines and obituaries."

Remus felt his face contort and flush slightly as his calm front began to fade, "Do you know how morbid this is?" he snapped. James opened his mouth to speak but Remus cut him off with the steadily rising volume of his voice, "And even if you did find something what are you going to do? Puff yourself up because you found another clue before the Aurors did, or are you going to go run to Daddy and tell him so he'll notice you!"

Remus' eyes grew wide as the final words settled bitterly among the four friends. He glanced in shock at each of them until his eyes fell finally upon James', which showed only a mingled stew of hurt and anger. Remus just stared in shock attempting to keep his friend's gaze but finally looked away with a feeble chance at an apology, which had simply gotten stuck within the confines of his throat anyway.

"You don't have to go, but we are doing this," James stated simply, his voice only hinting at the pain his eyes so easily betrayed.

And with that, James turned on his heel and stomped off to the library with Peter following closely behind. Sirius faltered in his step behind James, looking back only once before he walked around the corner at the end of the hall.

Remus hung his head before he turned the other way and bounded for his dormitory. Once safe inside the confines of his room, he let out a frustrated growl that resembled the beast more than Remus himself. Then within a temporary lapse of judgment he kicked his trunk brutally until all his frustrations could only come up in gasping sobs before he sat down on the abused object and cried into his own hands.

He was sick of covering things up, saving his hide from the unpleasantries of his life, but this was different from lycanthropy. This was sufficiently in the past, and they didn't need to know. Kara didn't want them to know.

He looked up from his hands to the ceiling with tears still clinging unpleasantly in his eyes. Why did protecting his family always end up in leaving things out of conversation? He kicked the trunk once more with the bottom of his heel, as he thought on James never speaking to him again and resolved silently that somewhere this had to stop.

Yet, it wasn't up to him this time. This was Kara's problem; her secret. Yes, it did tap in with him but mostly this was her unfortunate event and eventually she'd have to tell, or it'd only get worse between him and his friends. And ultimately for her and her own in the end as well.

"God, why does everything have to be so bloody complicated?" he mumbled to the void of the room before he stood up and walked to the window where he stood for a long while thinking.

_Somewhere this has to end. _

* * *

"God, what the heck is wrong with him!" James growled out after looking through the obituaries from January 4, 1956 without retaining even one name let alone anything that could have been important. Sirius and Peter looked up from their own copies of the Prophet without a word. They watched as James sat back in his chair and ran a hand through his messy hair.

"I know he's been strange since this last article came out but why does he have to take it out on us! We're only trying to help!"

Sirius' brow furrowed, "He might have a point though."

James glared at his best friend who merely shrugged his shoulders and continued to skim over the paper in front of him.

Peter watched silently as James and Sirius attempted to go back to their research, "What if he's hiding something," his voice was shaky as he said this but once it was out he had the others attention.

"What do you mean?" James stated with his brow cocked upright a bit.

"Just that it's no surprise if he was. He lied to us all last year. Who's to say he wouldn't do it again?"

"Remus doesn't lie." Sirius blurted out upset that Peter would try to make their mate the villain of the piece.

James let out a low laugh, "He doesn't lie like you do," Sirius took his turn glaring at his mate, "he omits things. That's just as much of a lie as saying outright that you didn't do something when you did."

He paused for a moment and felt his brow crease as he thought on Peter's accusation. He sighed deeply, "Peter does have a point. The way he avoids this topic like the plague is just one but he seems… protective about something when he does this-"

"That doesn't mean anything. James, it's like you need something to be wrong with him. Yes, you were right last year. But this isn't last year. It's different circumstances completely."

"Yeah, but there are definite similarities in his behavior. You remember just as well as I do how he acted anytime we accidentally asked about anything that involved his lycanthropy. He does the same thing now with this cult thing."

"And how could Remus be in on this too? It'd have to be through a relative and he doesn't have any." He paused for a moment, and then continued in thought, "Why would he get defensive or want to protect a family member anyway?"

James let the words settled in his head before he retorted, "Sirius, how does it feel when your dad hits you?"

"He doesn't hit me." Sirius growled out before his eyes grew wide and James smirked slightly despite what had just happened.

"See, you hate him but when I cornered you unexpectedly, you lied to protect the both of you. And we even know the truth!"

"That doesn't mean anything! Remus isn't me."

"He does it intentionally." Peter stated.

"That's not what he meant, Peter," James scolded, and then he turned his attention back to his other mate, "Sirius it does fit. Peter may well be right. I don't know how, but it makes sense."

Sirius sat back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest. "So what do you want us to do with this information?"

"Confront him," Peter threw out.

James just shook his head, "No that probably wouldn't work in this case. I think we'll just have to let it work itself out. You know just continue to research, or maybe he'll just come out and tell us…" he paused and looked over at Sirius, "if indeed this does involve him."

Sirius nodded at him and stood up from the table, "I'm not going to get anything else done today."

James nodded back at him in agreement and folded up his own paper, "Me neither, and Remus probably thinks I hate him so it's best that I talk to him anyway." He stood up and placed the paper in the filing cabinet. Peter followed suit and James then led them up to their common room.

Once they had entered their dorm room and shut the door they heard a soft, "I'm sorry," come from Remus who was glancing out of the window at the students wandering the snowy grounds below them.

James smiled slightly, "It's okay. I know you didn't mean it, you were just… upset."

Remus turned to them when James' last word reached him in full. He noticed his stance and he felt himself let out a sigh despite himself at the memory of the train ride home came to his mind. James had the same determined face though it seemed softer this tonight compared to that day.

_They knew,_ most likely not everything but ultimately _they knew._

Remus furrowed his brow as they separated and went on to collect their astronomy books. Yet, no inquisition came. No questions. Nothing. He joined them by grabbing his own book silently waiting for them to ask but nothing came. And he was sufficiently relieved to find this to be so.

He followed them out of the room with soft talk of what the lesson was going to be for that night. All the while, Remus kept thinking that they knew but they weren't going to ask about it and the untimely why that resounded after every conclusion that came into his head.

When they reached the tower he fell into his usual spot, finding himself joining his friends in their friendly chatter as every so often he'd glance over at Alexial before he resolved the eventually he'd have to talk with his cousin. He'd have to get her to tell the truth.


	19. Rest and Bedside Pranks

Lesson Nineteen: Rest and Bedside Pranks 

The feelings of worry subsided quickly enough as the week progressed and there still was no mention of what Remus' friends knew (or didn't know) or even any reference to the "fight" he'd had with James. So things simply continued as usual. The dreadful feeling that the psycho mystery man would strike again faded as the weeks turned slowly into months and things returned to what one would dub normal.

The only real exception to this concept of normality was the night in late March when Dumbledore had stood up from his seat at the head table and addressed the students. "Now, now," the entire Great Hall went quiet at the sound of the ancient mans voice, "I am sorry to say that Professor Lamia has officially resigned from the school."

"Yes!"

Remus, surprised by the outburst, looked up at Sirius who had so unceremoniously jumped out of his chair at the announcement, and tried not to laugh. He rather felt like joining his mate in his joyful outburst but said nothing too him as Dumbledore continued, "Yes, thank you Mr. Black. You may sit again," Remus smirked as he looked at the headmaster whose eyes twinkled a bit at Sirius as he sat down.

"Now, without anymore interruptions," he took one final glance at the four of them, "I am happy to say that Professor Slughorn, who has so kindly come out of his early retirement to substitute for all of you has reluctantly agreed to continue teaching full-time."

Dumbledore smiled at Professor Slughorn, who had stood up at the announcement of his name, before he continued, "He will also take the post of Head of Slytherin," he gave one final sweep of the students before and then he announced, "tweak," which all the students took as a sign to get up and clear out of the hall and head for their common rooms.

"I can't believe she's really gone!" James said happily as they wandered up to Gryffindor tower.

"It does seem a bit too good to be true, doesn't it?" Remus stated simply.

"Yeah, but, hell, I don't even care that she was replaced with another Slytherin, at least he's somewhat decent for the house he came out of," Sirius muttered as the Bloody Barron flew past.

The four agreed hastily on that and quickly wandered back to their dormitories. After that night everything hastily returned to usual. Although, they quickly found that their homework was, once again, beginning to pile up. And despite Professor Slughorn's fairness in class, (and to the extreme pleasure of both James and Sirius, it seemed, Slughorns apparent dislike of Snape's teacher's-pet-like tendencies) the class was no easier for Remus, who kept getting slight hints from Slughorn that perhaps he should take up private lessons from Lily Evans, who was quickly becoming one of his favorites.

With these new distractions, Remus' need to speak with Kara, to try and con her into letting the truth out, slowly diminished, and he too fell back into the habit of ignoring her or mocking her when he saw her. All of which he later regretted when the full moon came around and he had had plenty of time to dwell on his behavior.

Remus sighed deeply as he turned his attention to the window beside him. He glanced down at his arm where there were the few leftover gashes from the beast that were heavily scabbed over.

He glanced back out the window only to see the grounds, now green, and the sun shining brightly down upon them. He longed to join the other students romping around, going to classes, or to the lake because they had free periods, or just had to get to class. It was so boring being locked up in the hospital wing, and he would have voiced his opinion to Madam Pomfrey if he didn't suspect that she'd thump him in the temple with her forefinger if he mentioned it once more.

He smiled slightly at the thought, as much as he disliked her seriousness when it came to healing, he had grown attached to the woman. As had the rest of the family. Even his mother tried to keep in touch with the medi-witch as often as she could. She had become somewhat of an honorary member of the Lupin family.

"Er, hello."

The voice startled Remus so, that he moved his arm far too quickly when he turned to see who had come into the room, and ripped open some of the healing flesh. He let out a soft whimper at the hot feeling that was spreading through his arm, but tried desperately to ignore it when his eyes finally fell upon Alexial.

"Oh, hello," he doubted that he had gotten the surprise out of his voice. He watched intently as her eyes shifted from him to the large amount of prank supplies on his side table that James and Sirius had left "for his own amusement."

She smiled weakly at him and slowly stepped closer, "Wow, I... you look horrible."

Remus cocked his eyebrow at her, "I mean," she seemed to take a small breath before she went on, "Kara told me that you'd gotten attacked by a plant in Herbology, but I didn't expect it to be this bad."

Remus smiled at her, thankful to his cousin for coming up with a sincerely valid reason for him to be in the hospital wing, "Yes, well, I shouldn't have bothered it, or it wouldn't have attacked," Alexial grinned at him, "So, what brings you here?"

Her smile faded a bit as Remus held out his hand in an offer for her to sit in the empty chair beside him. She followed the unsaid direction, before she answered, "I think I've become your cousin's personal messenger."

Remus chuckled slightly at the announcement but stopped abruptly at the uneasy expression on her face and let Alexial continue, "Kara said that she is going come down to visit you later so she can talk over some things with you. She didn't tell me what, but it probably is important. With you being family and all."

"That's it?"

"Yeah, I'm sorry it's not much. I told her she could have done this herself but then she seemed to get a little offended," she shifted slightly in her seat before she continued, "I heard that Sirius took some of his revenge against Snape, he cast a nasty curse on him or James, I don't know and I don't care. Either way he took it out on her. She's not very happy to be around anyone who hangs out with Sirius Black at the moment, and I think that includes you."

"Well, that's pleasant," he stated ruefully, "Are you sure she'll make it up then?"

Alexial nodded quickly, "Yeah, I am. She doesn't usually fall back on her word, does she?" Remus shook his head and Alexial stood up, "Well, I have to get to Charms now. I hope you feel better soon Remus. I mean that."

She smiled gently at him. He watched her get up and walk nervously out the door somewhat sorry to see her go so soon. Then Madam Pomfrey bustled back into the room, with more oddly colored potions, "Who was that dear?"

"Alexial Mune."

Madam Pomfrey nodded at it, seeming only to half hear what he had said before she issued him a healthy does of a potion that smelled like sulfur, "You know you are not to have visitors at this time, you're to be resting," she tutted a bit at the newly ripped skin on his arm, "You can't heal properly if you don't rest."

Remus held back the urge to roll his eyes at the medi-witch but the thought quickly left him when she painfully re-"stitched" his arm with a spell that seemed to heal his wound far better than the original slave she had used on it.

"I know that, but she wanted to tell me something urgent. I couldn't just tell her that I'm perfectly awake, but can't except visitors."

The elder woman gave him a stern look that stated merely, "Yes, you could have," but he ignored it as well. "You will rest now. That's final," and with a flick of her wand she closed the curtains completely around his bed so that he could no longer see even the window. He let out a low frustrated growl at the medi-witch as the sound of her feet retreated out of the room.

How could she honestly expect him to rest? He felt fine. Well, aside from the claw-"plant"-marks on his arms and legs that was. The last thing he really wanted to do was take a nap.

He sighed deeply as he threw his head back onto the pillow, and glared at the curtains that were stubbornly blocking his view, when they suddenly sprung open. He instantly closed his eyes, hoping that Madam Pomfrey had not noticed him postponing her strict instructions.

"We know you're not sleeping."

Remus felt a smirk cross his lips at the sound of the voice, "You know I'm not supposed to have visitors," he stated firmly to what appeared to be thin air.

Then his curtains shut once more and he felt a hand feeling the bottom of the bed for his legs, followed shortly by the whole end of his bed dropping a few inches from the added weight, "I mean it. You're going to get me in trouble."

There was a smug laugh and shortly after both James and Sirius materialized from beneath the invisibility cloak. The fleeting thought of "Where's Peter?" crossed his mind but then he noticed the identical smirks on his friend's faces and all his concerns of Peter and Madam Pomfrey left him just as quickly as they had come.

"You won't get in trouble, we placed a silencing spell on the door," Sirius said simply, though he looked over his shoulder as if checking that it had worked before he continued. "Granted it'll probably wear off soon because it's third year magic and I only just tried it out."

"So, in short, we must get this out fast, I think Evans has gone out to sick Filch on us," James stated bluntly as he smiled widely at Remus.

Remus tried not to show his mild look of concern for the effects of whatever they had done to the other party involved, "What did you do?"

"Nothing really," James muttered as Remus cocked his eyebrow at them.

"No really," Sirius interjected seriously, then smirked once more, "It was only a little leg-locker curse, I swear. And it was only because she tried to get in the way of chucking a Filibuster Firework into the back of Snape's robes."

"Kara."

"Yeah, how'd you-"

"Alexial came in, said you did something to her and now she doesn't want to speak to me."

"Oh."

James, sensing the slight tension filling the room, stopped smiling as he turned his full attention to Remus, "That's not what we came here to tell you. And I promise that your cousin is in fine shape, a little upset, but she's fine," he looked into Remus' eyes as if to make sure that he wasn't going to scold him before he went on, "Okay, you'll never believe this, after Sirius hexed Kara, Lily turned up all upset and went on about how we're horrible people and whatnot. She lifted the curse off of Kara and then turned on us so fast that I think we were both afraid she'd jinxed us.

"Well, she starts going on, lecturing us on how we should treat people and how Snape had been 'extinguished' and we should think about what we'd done."

"Then I made the mistake of laughing," Sirius said almost ruefully, "So she turns on me and basically starts repeating the same thing she'd just gone and told James. I don't think I listened because after awhile it seemed more like a high pitched drone."

Remus smiled at the thought of Lily's reprimands becoming a drone, only Sirius could make a connection like that.

"Anyway," James stated, as if Sirius' interruption was not only annoying but unneeded as well, "she then seemed to get bored with him, I think it's because she wasn't getting anything from him, he kind of seemed to shut down. So she turned back to me flabbergasted and starts stuttering," he quickly made his voice to sound high pitched and angry, "'You… you… marauder,'

"I stared at her for a while before I asked, 'Marauder?'

"I swear she had to actually think about what to say. I think she thought the word was going to make me say I was sorry. Which, I most certainly am not. But anyway, she then looked me straight in the eye and said, 'It's the pedestal you put yourself on!'

"Well, to be honest that did shut me up… for a while, because she left in a huff and soon we saw that blasted Mrs. Norris which means, as we said, that Filch is out on the loose trying to find us.

"But you know what, I rather like that… 'Marauder.' What do you think?"

Remus stared at him for a moment, trying to take in the entirety of what he had just said. He then slowly ran through a few of the more "memorable" things they had done that were undoubtedly against the rules, and smiled. It really was fitting.

Then as the back of his mind screamed just to let it be and not say anything his mouth beat him too it, "I like it."

James and Sirius beamed at him, before they gave a great start, "Remus J. Lupin, I told you there was to be no visitors, you're to be resting!"

Remus jumped slightly as the curtains sprang open to reveal a rather confused-looking Madam Pomfrey, "I don't have any visitors," he said as he heard the infirmary door close.

"I could have sworn I heard voices. You're little friends' voices."

"I think you just want me in trouble."

She shot him a warning look, before she ran and got out one more potion, and issued it to him, "Yes well, you should rest so you'll be fine for school tomorrow."

He smiled pleasantly at her as she closed the curtain around his bed once more. Remus let out a sigh of relief, thankful that James had at least had the brains to bring his invisibility cloak with him, and lay back comfortably in his bed. He smiled slightly at the thought of James' tale. He then went back to waiting patiently for his cousin to stop by. But the only person who persistently came into the room was Madam Pomfrey, who kept scolding him for not at least trying to sleep.

Still, there was nothing.

And by the stroke of midnight, with a reluctant sigh Remus shut his eyes, realizing truly, for the first time all day, that this was one of the rare times that Kara had actually fallen back on her word.

* * *

AN: This one is just for fun... ignore it if you want, I simply feel the need to say this. The relayedconversation between James and Lily, over theterm 'marauder' ...that took place in real life. One of my good friends got mad at me (I think I was picking on her)and called me that. She's never read any of the Harry Potter books so it was in no way a complimentfrom her... but I found it so perfect that I stored it in my mind to use over a year later! It's amazing how these things work out... haha... me a marauder... 


	20. Newspaper Heritage

Lesson Twenty: Newspaper Heritage

The book seemed to be glaring at him, shouting obscenities, as Remus glanced at the contents. _What English is this?_ he thought bitterly to himself as he flipped to the back looking for the glossary for some translation he knew he wouldn't find. There was no possible way the words printed in his textbook were English. Nor were the words coming out of Slughorn's mouth.

It was nothing short of frustrating for Remus to come to terms, yet again, with the fact that he had been out of the hospital wing for nearly two weeks, and had caught up with all of his assignments only to find that he still could not understand Potions. What was wrong with him that he couldn't do something Peter could do? It couldn't really be _that _hard, could it?

But it was.

He smiled widely as the bell rang loudly proclaiming his temporary freedom, and quickly jotted down the assignment that the professor had just written on the board. He stood up from his seat and joined James and Sirius with Peter behind him as they walked out the door. He half listened as they discussed the lesson while he double-checked that he still had his Transfiguration essay with him. When he finally located it he looked up a moment later and noticed Kara coming towards him heading to her next class. He forced a grin onto his face, quickly making up his mind.

He hadn't had the chance to talk to her since she had stood him up in the infirmary because she seemed, to his disgust, quite keen on avoiding him. It had not taken him long to come to this conclusion because she evaded him in the Great Hall, choosing to take her meals at a different time or just not having them at all. And then the fact that it went past even that, he never saw her in the usual places he would have run into her had it been earlier in the year. So in a quick stride, just as she reached the classroom, he bid farewell to his mates saying he would be up in a bit. Then he walked towards her placing a hand on her shoulder. "We need to talk."

She let out a low growl before she met him face to face. "No I don't think that we do."

Her tone was cold and he met it with his best challenging look. "Really?"

"Really."

He glared at her when she spit the word back at him. How stubborn could she be? He ground his teeth a bit holding in his own frustrated growl before he continued. "You have to tell them! Or… or I won't keep covering for you. They'll find out anyway so it's bes-"

"That they hear it from me! Bullocks, Remus! If they find out then they find out. I am not going to open up what happened to me for a chat at teatime. It's my problem," she then seemed to realize that her voice was rising and leaned into him to whisper into his ear. "It's my heritage."

Then, before Remus could scorn her for being as inflexible as she was, she turned around and shut the classroom door in his face. He kicked the door with beast-like fury and heard a first year yip slightly at the unexpected noise before he too, turned on his heals and headed for his last class until Astronomy much later that night.

"She's too stubborn for her own good," he growled out as he walked into the Transfiguration room and sat down in his self-assigned seat.

James turned back to him with an inquisitive look but Remus just shrugged in a way that said: "I'll explain it later" knowing that he really wouldn't. Moments later McGonagall stood up from her elevated desk, having taken roll, and commenced with her lesson, (changing a feather into a pillow) which to Remus' grand surprise didn't start out all too badly for him. Amazingly, on his third attempt he had managed to turn his feather into what looked like a stuffed canary without the added appendages. And despite the mild comments from his teacher about his pronunciation of the spell he was still rather proud of his mediocre job.

Eventually, though, by the end of the class Remus had successfully managed to produce a completely de-feathered pillow. Granted it was shortly after Sirius had accomplished the task and long after James had, but he was still glad, nonetheless, to be the third one in the class to manage the feat.

The bell rang a good twenty minutes after he had first gotten the assignment down and he quickly packed up his attempt at the beginnings of the new and equally unpleasant assignment that would be due the next time they had class. He then, stood up and left the room with his mates.

Once they were out of the room the group rounded the corner and headed for the Great Hall for supper. They sat down in there usual spots without any ado and simply went to eating they're meals.

"You know that assignment today wasn't all that easy," James spoke up once the silence became too much for him. "It took me eleven tries to get it. I should have had it in ten but there were still four feathers attached to it. Four feathers!"

Remus chuckled a bit at James' comment before he took a bite of his sandwich. "Yes well, I was just happy to get it by the end of the class."

Sirius nodded his agreement while Peter bitterly poked at the innocent piece of bread that was sitting upon his plate. Obviously perturbed at the fact that his feather had stayed a feather for the whole of the double period. Remus smirked slightly at the saddened look on his mate's face as Sirius chortled. "Perk up Peter. The poor roll didn't do anything to you, there's no need to rip it to shreds," he winked at their sandy haired friend as Peter seemed to force a smile and then stuck a small bit of the broken bread into his mouth.

It didn't take long after that for them to clear off all the contents on their plates, which left them only to discuss the upcoming and last Quidditch game against Ravenclaw. Remus listened for a while to James and Sirius discussing tactics as if they shared the position of team captain. He smiled slightly as James scolded Sirius for saying he'd just randomly shoot Bludgers at people and hope that they'd hit. Then before it fully registered he found himself joining in with his two sickles.

"Your chances are definitely better than usual. Quinn never really recovered from being hit with that Bludger in that last match against Hufflepuff. I heard that they are having a hard time with him. 'He seems disorientated on the field.'"

James turned and looked at Remus. "Where did you hear that?"

Remus shrugged. "I spend a lot of time in the hospital wing, remember?" Sirius cocked an eyebrow at him. "When I was still in hospital they brought him in because he'd managed to get decked with the Quaffle this time during practice. I don't think they even knew the bed I was in was occupied."

James and Sirius exchanged a glance. "You're brilliant! Now we can pass that information to Cooper and use it to our advantage."

"It's perfect to the highest level," Sirius interjected and received a series of strange looks from his mates. "I think we should go."

The other three boys stood up and followed Sirius out of the Hall. As they left Remus casually looked over at the Ravenclaw table where Kara and Alexial were talking. Kara looked up at him and glared before she went back to her story, which Remus couldn't help but think was her simply retelling their argument.

He felt his brow furrow as James tapped his side. "Remus, we're going to head to the library, you know, because we don't have class until Astronomy."

Remus nodded at him. "I'm coming with you."

If he hadn't had his mind so focused on the imaginary conversation going on in his head between Kara and Alexial, he most likely would have laughed at the look of shock displayed so bluntly on all three of his friends faces. James' face settled most quickly into his normal expression. "Are you sure, because we do respect the fact that you don't really want to look into this guy. It really is okay, mate."

"I've changed my mind on that," he unconsciously gave a pointed look at Kara. "I think I have to."

Sirius cocked his eyebrow at the comment but when he received no further reply on the thoughts of his friend he let Remus be. Then with a shrug he stated. "All right, well then, let's get at it then. Only two hours till nightfall."

And with a smart-assed grin plainly on his face, he by passed James and led the way to the library. Remus smiled uneasily as he trailed behind James. His mind silently reeling over his decision, what if he was doing the wrong thing?

He sighed deeply as they wandered into the library gathering a warning glance from Madame Pince, which seemed to say: "I've warned you lot a thousand times to keep quiet in the library. If I hear so much as one word you're out for the rest of the semester." They passed her, while Sirius offered her a casual wave coupled with a wink.

"I think Filch refused her a date again," James whispered once they were well hidden behind a number of bookcases.

The other three chuckled while they filed into the seats at the corner table as James ran off and gathered a number of Daily Prophets and set the pile down before them. In the next second James, Sirius, and Peter pulled out the newspaper that followed wherever then had last left off.

Remus merely stared at the stack for a while before he finally leaned forward and began to shuffle through the yellowing papers. He carefully glanced through the different dates before he stopped suddenly when his eyes fell on a paper dated January 5, 1945. He had no clue why the date seemed right to him; why, that in his gut, that year seemed to have some dull cry of importance, he did not know.

But it did.

He gently pulled the old parchment out from under the other papers. James, appearing to have read the date over his shoulder, cut into his thoughts. "We weren't planning on going back that far," at the blank look on Remus' face he went on, "but if you feel the need to, be my guest."

He then proceeded to pull out the chair next to Remus and sat down. Remus smiled slightly while he opened up his newspaper to the obituaries and glanced over to the paper James was looking at. The date popped out from the rest of the script, September 22, 1965, and Remus felt his skin tremble a bit.

Remus attempted to ignore the feeling of uneasiness that had passed through his body and has seemed to settle there, making itself comfortable. Then with a shrug and another tremble he flipped the first page of the Daily Prophet and slowly looked through the aged paper, with only one thought running through his head:

_What am I doing?_


	21. Three Cheers For Quidditch

Lesson Twenty-one: Three Cheers for Quidditch

The fire glowed brightly before them, illuminating the faces portrayed around the walls. Papers were strewn across the floor and on the coffee table all with the assorted subjects they could be taking on them, accompanied with a small overview of the class written beneath it. Along with assorted finished essays mingled within the mess, each had a different member of their small group's names on the top.

Remus sat back in the couch and glanced up at Slytherin's portrait image, which was scowling at him, apparently still holding the things he had said to the portrait earlier in the year against him. He returned the scowl and picked up his scroll of possible classes for next term and looked it over once more, slowly trying to narrow the list down.

Once he had reached the end of the page, he dramatically crossed Divination off the list. When his line had reached the "n" he heard the sound of papers falling to the ground. He looked up to find the source and saw Sirius frowning severely.

"My mother actually asked me about this during Easter break," he said simply, and at the silence continued, "Yes, she sent me an owl. I was shocked. Then I opened it and found that it was up to her usual standards in love." He scowled once again, more to himself than anything else.

"Did you write her back?" Peter asked softly, his quill hovering questioningly over Ancient Runes.

"I didn't get a Howler, did I? Yeah, I wrote her back. I put a simple 'no' on a scrap piece of parchment and sent it off."

Remus watched as James shook his head at Sirius' rant. "My only question is _why_ didn't we get this during Easter? I mean at least then we'd had extra time to do this."

"And we'd use it if we had?" James stated pointedly. "We would have done it last minute just like we're doing now. Besides, the reason we're doing this now instead of when we were supposed to is Lamia and Kettleburn, who wanted to retire but couldn't make up his mind. Dumbledore needed to know what state the staff and classes were in before we could sign up for them."

"I don't see why that matters. Either way we'd have the same class options." James shrugged his shoulders before turning back to his own list as Sirius went on, "You know I'm right."

Then Sirius, too, turned back to his list and crossed something out. A moment later Remus heard him exclaim: "And why on earth is Muggle Studies _required_?"

Knowing it was rhetorical, Remus felt himself smirk as he jotted down on the form they had to turn in, "Care of Magical Creatures" before he opened his mouth, "Because of wizards like you, Sirius. You hadn't ever even worn a pair of shorts until you spent that month at my house. Besides it amazes me how many wizards don't know how to blend in properly with muggles, who, might I add, outnumber us." He finally looked up from his paper, "We need it."

Sirius glanced at Remus and just nodded, "Okay maybe _we_ do, but you don't. You know this stuff."

"It's required. Plus it's an easy 'E' which won't be so bad after I earn a 'T' in potions."

They fell into a silence filled only with the soft scratching of quills against parchment.

Remus again read through the list he'd practically memorized and slowly scratched Ancient Runes off the list, mildly wishing there was a way to keep that without having his schedule so full. Then, he again went up and reread the page from the top.

"It has come time for you to pick new classes.

These classes will help dictate what you wish to

do upon leaving Hogwarts, so please, choose

wisely.

There will be a new class for everyone. Muggle

Studies will be added as a required course. This

means that you are left to choose at least one

other class for your leisure…"

_At least one class._ So it would be somewhat wise to take two, even if it did fill his schedule up a bit more than he would like. But then, odds were that his mates would only pick one. Yet, two would help, most likely.

He leaned backwards in his seat and felt his back crack all the way down his spine. He let out a low groan and stared across the coffee table at James who was sitting cross legged on the floor with his head practically on the table as he wrote on the application sheet what class(es) he had decided on. Then with an exaggerated sigh he put his quill down on the table. "I'm done," he looked down at his watch, "and I think I'm going to turn in if we want to hit the library before the Quidditch match tomorrow."

The others nodded their agreement and Remus jotted down "Arithmancy" under the class he had already picked. Then he too stood up, "What'd you pick?"

James looked over his shoulder as he had put one foot out the door, "Er, Ancient Runes and Care of Magical Creatures."

Remus' smiled, shocked that James had, in fact, picked two classes, only to gain a smirk from his friend and a hastened "goodnight."

Remus chuckled slightly to himself as he resituated himself on the couch. He listened to the portraits talk amongst themselves and Sirius grumble on that the courses weren't interesting enough, while he stared at Peter who looked as though he was only picking a lesser hell.

After a few minutes of silence Sirius merely closed his eyes and jabbed at the paper and wrote down what it landed on. Then he too rolled up his paper, shoved it in his bag, looked at Peter and said simply, "Just sign up for Divination, I'll help you with it." Then he looked at Remus with a shrug, "I'm taking Care of Magical Creatures as well."

Then he stood up without a word and walked out the door. Peter then looked up with a mildly nervous expression at Remus, "Should I sign up for two classes too?"

Remus shrugged his shoulders and then thought on it, "No, I don't think so." He sighed slightly before standing up, "Come on, let's go to bed."

* * *

The next morning the dorm room was woken early with the sound of clattering feet. When Remus opened his eyes he saw only two big round orbs hovering in front of his face. He jumped back and let out a cry that only earned a: "Don't worry it's just a house elf," from James.

Remus sat up in his bed and combed his hair slightly with his hand as he stared at the little elf. It was ugly, well if there was even such a thing as a cute house elf that was. It had big purple eyes and from the style of Hogwarts servile uniform it had on he assumed it was female. It smiled widely at him as it showed him a very scrumptious looking tray of food. He took a scone with a small "hi" to the elf before he looked around the room. Beside each of their beds was a house elf. Each equally eager to serve their charge their food.

"She's brought your breakfast."

He looked over at James. "Why?" Then followed it quickly with, "What time is it?"

"It's five o' clocks in the mornings, Lupey sir," the house elf before him squeaked.

"And if we want to get any research done, I figured the earlier the better. If we get out of here by six it'll give us a good three hours to work."

Remus merely blinked at him. Then he grabbed his bowl of cereal and began spooning food. There was no use in arguing- James had made up his mind and that was final.

As he ate, "his" house-elf continued to stare at him almost expectantly, which actually unnerved him but he said nothing about it to the little being, not wishing to offend it. When he had finished eating, he put on his clothes, which the little elf had picked out for him. Then he settled into listening to Sirius and his house elf (Askim) tell extremely bad jokes back and forth, involving a mandrake, troll and a pink tutu, until James finally proclaimed that they should head out because the rest of there house should be waking and heading down to breakfast at a normal time, which meant that the library would be open. James bid farewell to the house elves and Remus distinctly heard questionable muttering coming from their fellow classmates that were leaving their rooms and had seen them walk by with the elves.

James followed Askim out to the library gaining an amused yet inquisitive look from Christopher Weasley as he watched them follow the parade of house elves out of the fairly unpopulated common room. Once they had officially gotten rid of the house elves, who were reluctant to leave after having heard about what they were doing and had offered much of there assistance, they entered the library alone.

When they entered they saw Madam Pince, who looked as if she'd been struck down by some higher power or had perhaps just seen a Grim, Sirius smiled cheerily at her as they passed making Remus smirk slightly. This had become somewhat of a joke to Sirius; be as nice to the old bat as possible to either annoy her until she threw them out of the library for the rest of the semester or confuse her into leaving them alone. Just the other day, he had blown a series of kisses at her and the day before that he'd acted as if she were the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Despite it being a truly hazardous decision, it was still rather funny.

Remus wandered to the back shelf and pulled out the paper he had last left off with which was dated June 13, 1945. He'd gotten nowhere, the same as the rest of the group, but that didn't appear to be good enough of a reason to stop. He casually glanced over at James' paper.

November 9, 1965.

He felt a chill set once again in his stomach but ignored it as he had been for the last week, thinking eventually his brain would overrule his conscious and let him be. He flipped the page to his own paper, pushing that thought to the side as he dived into pointless news and obituaries of the past.

And so it went for the next three hours. With no real discussions between the four friends, only the sound of rustling ancient pages until finally James looked down at his watch. "Erft, Sirius, we have to go, or we'll be late."

"We can't have that now, can we?" Sirius said rather blankly before he looked up and folded up his paper. "Cooper would loose his head." He then made a gesture that gave one the image of their beloved captain literally losing his head. He then winked at them before he stood up and followed James out of the library.

Remus heard Sirius say something overly sweet about Madam Pince's makeup (she never wore any) and chuckled slightly as he stood up to put the finished paper back in its spot. When he turned back, Peter had his things packed up neatly and was looking at him nervously. Remus smiled slightly realizing that he rarely spent any time alone with Peter and suddenly understood that he would probably end up spending more time like this as the years went on.

"Do you think we'll need our cloaks for the match?" Remus asked simply to fill the void between them.

Peter shuffled his feet slightly before answering. "No, the last match for Hufflepuff and Slytherin, when you were sick," he added, the tone in his voice was cold and Remus couldn't hide his surprise. Then Peter finished more cheerfully, "we barely needed our cloaks at all, and it's sunny so…"

Remus nodded, still disturbed by what he could only say was Peter's apparent disturbance with… with _him. _He felt his brow furrow as he looked ahead at his sandy haired friend. What had he done? Had he been mean to him, hurt his feelings somehow when he was with the group? That couldn't be, he was always nice. Then it had to be-

"Snickerdoodles."

Remus snapped back to reality and followed Peter through the portrait hole. Inside, the common room was full, bustling with life as his fellow house mates traipsed around the room with clothing that matched the interior of the room. He smiled as he uttered continuous "pardon me's" to the people he passed as he made his way to their dorm. When he finally got to his room he dropped his books on his bed and proudly took off his shirt and exchanged it for the one Gryffindor one he owned. "It's mad down there! Is it always like that?"

Peter looked up from his trunk with a banner clenched in his teeth and his hands full of what looked like Sirius' filibuster fireworks. He quickly spit out the banner, "Yeah, it's really cool. I think we've got the rowdiest fans. And everyone really seems to like James and Sirius."

Remus grinned back at him, glad to hear the enthusiasm in his friend's voice. "Do the girls always make their own shirts?"

Peter seemed to think for a bit. "Yeah, they always have a different style." Then he pocketed the fireworks. "We have to go now. Sirius said we have to have front row seats."

Remus didn't bother to ask why, figuring he deserved good seats having missed out on every Gryffindor match this year due to his Lycanthropy. He once again followed Peter back out the door and out of the common room. Settling into friendly chatter, quickly forgetting about his earlier thoughts, as they headed towards the pitch. Once inside they sat down in the seats that were in the front, luckily enough, for the stadium was filling rather quickly.

Remus half ignored what Peter said, not meaning to, but unknowingly letting it happen as he took in the commotion around him. Taking in all of the banners hanging flatteringly on the other side promoting the Ravenclaw seeker, Cleo Christianson. Or the Weasleys behind him, who were happily throwing red and gold confetti, making his shirt look like a costume designer's grand opus. He smiled widely as the Gryffindors around him began to chant their praises, attempting to out blast their fellow Ravenclaws.

After a few minutes of neglect Peter went quiet, only speaking to point out certain things he thought funny, like the group of girls to their right that were making up cheers off the top of their heads for their favorite player. Remus couldn't help but chuckle when he heard them start chanting about Sirius, knowing full-well that these girls ranged from third to fifth years. When they started up again with the next player of choice, he heard a groan come from behind him. He turned around only to gain a face full of confetti. He spit some of the stray pieces out of his mouth, "Thanks for that Chris."

"It's no problem, really."

Remus only laughed before he turned to the groaner, "Lily."

"Remus."

Chris decided then to chime in, "She's being a party pooper."

"Is she now" he replied knowing full well that he sounded like an amused parent, "What's bothering you?"

"Nothing. I'd rather just watch the game then hear them go on about how they rate the players in looks."

"I see. Well, they're just having fun. I see no harm in it."

"It's annoying."

"And so are you at the moment," Chris stated, only to earn a glare filled with fire from Lily.

Once again Remus could only laugh at her apparent unhappiness before he heard the crowd around him go wild, followed by Peter pulling on his shirt to gain his full attention. He turned obediently before he looked down at the stadium while the players exited the hallway that lead to their locker rooms. The girls beside them cheered even more loudly as the two teams walked out to the middle of the field.

"Mount your brooms!" Madam Hooch hollered.

The players did as they were told and, upon the blow of her whistle, were off. The cheers around him instantly became so loud that useless chatter between friends became impossible. Forcing everyone, whether they truly wanted to or not, to watch the game. No sooner had the players made one back and forth motion down the field there was a thunderous crack heard throughout the pitch, followed quickly by assorted gasps and "oohs."

"Oh my god!" Remus heard come from Lily as he stared wide-eyed at the pitch.

The sound of the Bludger coming in contact with the young Ravenclaw's skull was reminiscent of a tough watermelon falling on pavement, and the look of her afterward, in Remus' opinion, was about the same. The sound of Madam Hooch's whistle sounded as if it had been joined by a chorus of fifty of its brothers, and the crowd in the stands seemed to take a step forward in unison for a closer look.

"Penalty Gryffindor."

No cheers or boos greeted the announcement.

"Five throws for Ravenclaw."

At that Remus watched as Sirius flew towards Madam Hooch completely red in the face. He was screaming words no one in the stands could hear but Remus could just imagine what his friend was saying as the Ravenclaws ushered Cleo off of the field. _I was just playing the game! So what if her head got in the way, it's part of the game! She should have been looking_… were only a few of the things Remus could fill in as his friend went on at the referee.

"Another penalty for Gryffindor!"

This time James flew down along with the captain, but rather than yelling at Hooch they simply pulled the steaming Sirius away before he did anymore damage. Moments later, though, the game continued. However, the after affects of Sirius' fine job as Beater was echoed around the stadium.

"_We haven't got a seeker. That's hardly fair. We can't win now!"_

Taylor Way flew up in front of Cooper to take the penalty shots. Then with the air of someone mourning the loss of a loved one he simply threw, in what seemed a half-hearted nature, the Quaffle. It soared and whether due to cockiness or mere stupidity Cooper missed the save and the ball went in. The Ravenclaws were in an uproar, and as if to dampen the Gryffindors mood a little more, Cooper proceeded to miss the next four throws before he finally got his act together.

When the last ball fell into Cooper's hand, he smiled as if surprised and tossed it to James who caught it with ease. Remus watched James tear down the field, occasionally tossing the ball to a teammate only to earn it back, every time, a moment later. He cheered openly with the self-proclaimed cheerleaders, as did everyone else around him, while Gryffindor managed their first real score.

"Quite the mean streak Sirius Black has."

Remus turned at the sound of the voice and frowned at the person his eyes had fallen on, "Kara."

She ignored the coldness in his tone and went on, "He could have killed her."

Remus looked at her as the crowd around him cheered wildly, "Yeah, but he didn't. Besides he was only playing the game." He was amazed that the words had come out of his mouth. And by the look Kara was giving him, she was too.

"Oh, now you stand up for everything they do. Nice Remus. Real Nice."

He glared at her wishing he knew some sort of spell to make her disappear. Since he knew no such spell, he simply attempted to ignore the comment. "That's not what you came over to talk about so just spit it out, will you. That way we can all go on our merry way and ignore each other like usual."

She looked hurt by the comment for a moment but it quickly dissipated and her eyes took on a glacial appearance, which made it impossible for Remus to tell what she was thinking. Or, for that matter, what she was feeling. He hated that look with a passion.

"Alright then, if you insist. I saw you in the library this morning looking through those old papers-"

"Great then, care to join us sometime?"

She glared at him, "No, I don't. Actually, I'd prefer it if you'd stop!"

"I'll stop when you tell them. Which you won't, so this is really quite pointless."

"God Remus! This isn't their problem. Hell! It's not even yours! So stop acting like it is!"

"Then you should stop coming to me every time you have a problem with it!"

She fell silent and Remus was suddenly aware of the people around him. Like Lily watching him rather than the game. Or that, despite Peter's eyes looking at James flying down the field in utter amusement, he was really listening to every word he and his cousin were saying in what only could be described as a hollered whisper.

Kara stared at him for a long while before she continued. "I can't believe you'd pick your friends over family. What's happened to you?"

Then without thinking, completely furious with her, he turned to the Quidditch Pitch and watched as James caught the Quaffle and soared down the field, and yelled, "Go James!" as loudly as he could.

He stood like that for a long while before he glanced over to see Kara's back leaving the stadium. Seconds later, barely registered by Remus, while he continued to stare at the spot Kara had disappeared at, Gryffindor caught the Snitch and won the game. Peter's fireworks went off beside him, and suddenly Remus realized he didn't feel up to celebrating.


	22. Secrets, Secrets Hurt Someone

Lesson Twenty-Two: Secrets, Secrets: Hurt Someone

_Brrring!_

Remus resisted the urge to jump up and dance at the sound of the bell. He couldn't stand the idea of any more review nor any more lecturing from Professor Pike. He already knew the criteria that was going to be on the exam and he had reached the point, somewhere during his last stay in the hospital wing, that he didn't really care if the lecturing were about him and his mates not paying attention in class because, in the last few months, he had been able to prove that their professor was incompetent. A nice man, but an idiot all the same.

Throughout their studies, which were always more on theories than actual fact, he had given valid facts to disprove any of the given theories. And due to that, had quickly become a great annoyance to his teacher.

Remus smirked slightly as he picked up his books and walked up to his professor and handed him his essay on hinkypunks. Professor Pike smiled cheerily at him, despite his obvious irritation with him earlier. Remus returned to gesture and turned around, fully intent upon leaving.

"You took your time getting done this time around."

Remus sighed deeply, silently wishing he'd managed to get to the door before Pike had spoken. He turned around and, though he took his time, walked back up to his teacher's desk, "I had a lot of other work to do."

Professor Pike nodded. "I understand completely," he then set the scroll Remus had just handed him on top of his desk before he smiled once more at Remus, "You're a very bright young man, Mr. Lupin. I want you to know that."

Remus looked at him stunned. He hadn't expected that at all. "Oh and… when you correct me or add your thoughts in class, however frustrated I appear at the time, I am truly grateful for the input. I wish more of the students were like that but, unfortunately, getting their opinions is somewhat like pulling teeth."

He stopped again and smirked his typical inside-joke smirk that all of the students had come to poke fun at, before he continued. "But then if they were all like you I'm sure I'd be living off migraine potions."

Remus chuckled awkwardly, thinking slightly that he should revise his opinion of his teacher. "You're probably right."

"Yes, I'm sure of it. But alas, the position I was waiting for is not going to open up, so this will be my only year here," he paused again. "I don't even know why I'm telling you this."

"I don't know either, sir." Remus knew it sounded odd even before it was fully out of his mouth, but went on anyway, "Er, if you don't mind me asking what job did you want?"

"Muggle Studies."

Remus' eyes widened a bit. It seemed almost too fitting that that was the class he'd been waiting for. The perfect match for his too friendly attitude. Remus nodded before he replied, "I'm sorry that didn't work out for you, but I've got to get going."

"Ah yes, Messrs. Black, Potter, and Pettigrew are waiting for you no doubt. Run along then."

Remus turned around and walked casually out of the room to the window across the hall where his mates were waiting. He grinned at them as he moved his rucksack to his other arm after the added pressure began to cause the leftover healing wound on his shoulder to scream.

"So, how much time are you in for?"

"Ha ha," Remus retorted as they rounded the corner heading for the Great Hall. As soon as they reached it then wondered over to their usual spots and sat down.

"No, seriously, how much time are you in for?" Sirius mumbled through a mouthful of food.

Remus shook his head swallowing a large bit of food, "Ho ho! Just because you got landed with a week's worth of detention for throwing that American frog spawn on Snape while I was in hospital, does not mean that_ I _have detention."

"That was great, wasn't it? I hear he still has warts popping up in _unpleasant _places."

James gave Sirius a pointed glance before he gave his attention to Remus. "Okay then, what'd he talk to you so long for, then?"

"Just that he likes having me in class… and that… he's not going to be our teacher next year."

"What?"

"Yeah, he wanted Professor Kiela's job."

"Muggle Studies?" Sirius interjected, "Who'd want to teach that?"

"Professor Pike apparently."

"Thank you for that, Peter."

Peter blushed slightly as the others chuckled slightly. Remus only shook his head, "I can't see the class being as bad as you think it's going to be, Sirius."

"You can think that," he retorted as he shoveled the remainder of his food into his mouth and sat a little backwards on the bench.

They sat in silence for a while before the conversation switched to their foreboding exams and all the studying they would need to endure, before it switched to the fine art of pranking, and how Remus still didn't seem to understand the glory of it- the number one example of the night being a frog-spawned Snape. Remus laughed along with them and interjected every once and awhile to state his case or object to some of the things that they were saying.

Soon enough, though, the food on all of their plates was gone and the Great Hall had emptied for the most part, with students ready to turn in for the evening. James stood first, apparently tired of their friendly bantering and was followed shortly after by Sirius and Remus and then, finally, by Peter.

"The library?"

The others nodded their agreement, though Peter was reluctant. "You can study there too, Pete." James stated before he lead them casually out of the great hall and out to the library.

They walked the way in silence, finding no real need to speak along the way. When they reached the library they walked in, and with a full-out smirk on his face Sirius turned to Madam Pince and stated: "My dear, Madam Pince, I do believe I'm falling for you! For every time I come in here your glowing face makes my heart just purr."

The older woman glared at him but managed to say nothing back. Remus and James then uttered their good days to the librarian and walked to the back of the room. When they finally reached the table they had claimed for the whole of the semester, they burst out laughing.

"'Your glowing… face makes my heart… purr!'" James blurted out before he fell into another fit of giggles.

"Where did you come up with that?" Remus asked while fighting his own set of giggles.

Sirius merely tapped the side of his head and smiled before he stood up and walked over to the filing cabinet of Daily Prophets. He casually pulled out the needed papers and stacked them up on the top of the cabinet.

"Hey, Peter, you studying or helping?"

Peter looked up with a sad frown on his face, "Studying."

"Okay, that works."

He then pulled out the last paper and came over. Unlike James, though, he handed out each paper stack individually. He smiled slightly before he sat back down in his seat and opened his paper to the obituaries. Remus watched as he smirked, "My grandpa died, heart attack… loving wife will miss him… blah, blah. Nothing." Then he set the paper down dramatically and picked up the next.

Remus only rolled his eyes at Sirius' very un-thorough search of the paper and looked down at his own.

July 19th, 1945.

He read over the headlines and obituaries only to find absolutely nothing. He placed the paper to the side and picked up a new one, only to find the same.

And so it went for the next hour, with Peter jumping in asking assorted questions about different Transfiguration assignments and their significance to the real world and more importantly their exam. This, surprisingly, seemed to make the air more cheerful than the last few days they'd been working. Yet, despite the interruptions Sirius still leaned back in his chair after setting his last paper down, "I'm bored."

James looked up from his paper first. "Really?" His tone was almost monotonous.

"Yes."

"Then do something else." Remus stated not looking up from his own paper.

"I don't have anything else to do."

"Then find something."

Remus could almost feel the glare Sirius had given James before he heard the sound of his chair pull out and saw Sirius stand up. Then Remus looked up and watched his mate leave and the "Seriously, purring" to Madam Pince as he left. Remus couldn't help but shrug his shoulders at Sirius even though he couldn't see it, before he looked back down at his paper.

* * *

Sirius walked down the hallway, or rather skipped, as he wandered down the hallway with the armor that had beat him down the previous year, and was trying not to fall over and collide with the enchanted dust collectors when he first heard the voice.

"What are you doing?"

He turned around and smirked, "I am trying not to step on the cracks, Ickle Lupey. What brings you out so late?"

"It's 8:30."

"Like I said, late."

She rolled her eyes at him and attempted to leave his presence. She bypassed him and walked towards the staircase only to see it change as she got close to it. She growled in frustration and heard Sirius' footsteps behind her.

"I asked you a question. It's rude to just walk away."

Kara resisted the urge to clench her fists and barrel into him before she went back to her common room. Instead she did what Aunt Gwen would say was the "right thing to do" and turned around to answer his question, though it came out more venomous than she thought it was going to. "I'm going to see Hagrid, if you must know."

"Hagrid?"

"Yes, Hagrid!"

"Why?"

"He's nice to me."

"He's nice to everyone. Why do you think I enjoy having DT with him?"

Kara stared at him, and then blinked a bit before she let her confusion visibly show on her face. Which, she hated. "DT?"

He smiled a half smile, which she officially could conclude, beyond a reason of a doubt, she hated. "Detention. Keep with the times."

Kara shrugged her shoulders and did a happy dance in her mind that the stairway had floated back to its original position and stepped onto it. The feeling, though, quickly dissipated when Sirius came onto it with her.

_Why me? She asked herself silently cursing the gods that gave her this particular fate. But she continued to attempt to display the manners her Aunt had taught her. "So why aren't you in your common room?" _

"Research. We were in the library but I left because I thought I'd have to kill Peter if he asked for clarification on one more spell we already covered in Transfiguration."

She stared at him, knowing that he'd want her to reply but she hadn't heard anything past the word "library." She stared at his face as any traces of happiness seemed to erase from his features. The stairs connected then with the first floor with an unpleasant jolt and she stepped off and simply walked away.

She pushed open the door that headed out to the grounds. Her mind was reeling. Angry that Remus hadn't even tried to stop them, and at herself for knowing, deep down, that he wouldn't. He never listened to her before, and now with his friends she'd been put on the backburner for good. She knew it.

Kara paused for a moment. Footsteps. She clenched her fists and turned around to face Sirius. She glared at him. Did he not get the picture when she had walked away?

"Why are you following me?" Kara stated before she could stop herself.

"Because we were having a conversation and you walked away." His eyebrow cocked up slightly, "And that's rude, Little Lupey. Rude."

She glared at him. She hated him. There was no doubt in her mind about that now. She turned around and walked away. Her breathing was heavy with frustration.

"And one more thing," he began to say as he rested his hand on her shoulder. Instinct kicked in and she slapped it away, as she turned around. Her eyes were livid as they rested on his smug face expression.

"No! There is no 'one more thing,' Sirius Black! I want you to leave me alone!"

Sirius' glance was just as defiant as hers. "And one more thing. You think we haven't noticed your and Remus' little tiffs about this research thing?" She glared at him openly, but found that she was unable to move. "That's right. We do pay attention, despite popular belief. And Peter relayed that whole little incident from the Cup game."

Her face went blank then and Sirius could no longer tell what she was thinking, or worse, when she would blow up, yet still he continued. "So why are you so against Remus helping? What complex do you have that makes you think that because you are family he needs to bend to your every whim? Well, let me tell you something, Lil Lupey," He leaned into her ear and spoke in a barely heard whisper, "Family means nothing."

He didn't have time to lean back from her ear before Kara's eyes went wide at his words, hitting a nerve and she found herself push him with all of her force. Sirius tumbled to the ground, not expecting that reaction and looked up at Kara. Her eyes were brimmed with tears, which he hadn't expected either, and her face was red with anger. She then pointed her finger at him and yelled. "Family does not mean 'nothing,' Sirius Black!"

* * *

Remus stared at the page in front of him. Everything around him seemed to disappear.

It couldn't be.

He hadn't actually expected to find anything. But the answer was staring back at him and the answer was in Little Hangleton.

He set the paper down. He stared at the small article in disbelief. It was the same case: Mysterious death, seemingly non-important people.

So it had obviously happened before that "once before" that was mentioned by James, and then later in the paper. But why the paper would leave that out… unless…

Unless they didn't want to scare everyone in the wizarding community. This other case involved nobody's: a crazy, and a family of muggles. Hardly on the radar in those times. Not to mention the fact that they had taken in the crazy for the deaths of the family. The case was closed according to the records the Aurors had. There was no real reason to hash that back up if they could find a way around it.

He stared at the paper. There was something sincerely wrong with this picture. Someone out there had to know about this. They probably even knew what the hex was.

Something. Anything. If _he'd _managed to find it the Aurors had too…

"Oh my god!"

Remus jumped at the sound of James' voice, and looked up from his paper.

James reiterated the statement. Speaking, once more, the same thing that was on his own mind.

"Oh, my god!"


	23. Of Secret Tears

Chapter Twenty-Three: Of Secret Tears

Sirius lay on the ground unable to move, or rather, unwilling to move. Despite Kara's lack of wand, the look in her eyes was murderous and her finger looked more and more like a weapon of mass destruction. Her words rang through his head and though he wanted to scream that maybe what she'd said was true for her: _he'd_ never seen any proof of her statement. Yet, still he remained silent watching her tears release slowly from the confines of her eyes.

Her body was trembling and he could tell that if he said or did anything the hold she had on her emotions would break. He then let his eyes meet hers and saw something unexpected. The seemingly strong willed eleven-year-old looked stripped of everything, leaving nothing but sadness.

"What's wrong?" He braced himself for an attack.

None came.

He opened his eyes and took a chance in standing up. Still there was no attack. When his eyes met hers she spoke, "Library."

"Excuse?"

She glared at him, the sadness quickly dissipated and was replaced with anger. "You heard me. Your stupid ventures to the library! That's what's wrong. Remus spending more time helping you in destroying me then he ever has with me alone!"

"Remus isn't destroying you. You're overreacting." Sirius stated now wishing he had just played dead and let her go to Hagrid's.

"Overreacting? I'm not overreacting!"

"Alright then. But I sincerely doubt if the library has anything that could destroy you, unless you happened to write a crap book on Potions."

Kara glared at him once again and stepped forward. He flinched slightly and she couldn't help but feel glad that she'd made him do so. "You don't know anything! You should just leave the past in the past. Nothing good comes from opening closed wounds-"

"You're losing me."

"You put your nose in places it doesn't belong. Looking for things that other people don't want you to see."

"I don't understand."

"Of course I did. Because you know nothing! After all your searching-"

"You've officially lost it, Kara. Maybe you should see Madam Pomfrey. I'll take you-" When he touched her shoulder she pulled away and started to cry. He just stared at her, amazed by her reaction.

"Tell me," was the only thing that left his mouth.

She stared into his eyes, "I will not tell you…" she took a deep breath and looked up at the night sky, "I will not tell you that my parents died…"

* * *

Remus watched as James stared wide-eyed at the paper before he finally looked at him, "Why?"

Remus merely shrugged. He saw Peter looking at the both of them in confusion, but ignored it figuring he'd catch up eventually. Then he pushed the paper he'd found about the Riddle's towards James. "It's happened before. You were right."

James stared at the paper reading the article. Then he looked up at Remus knowing he had more to say. "I think the Auror's _do_ know about this. I think they just don't want the public to know because they made a mistake. I think… I think they even know what the hex is-"

"But they don't want it published." James interjected, "I thought of that too. I think they'll add it to something Mad-Eye called an Unforgivable. There's three on the list: Imperious, Cruciatus, and one like this one but there's obvious signs of heart failure." He took a deep sigh before he went on, "Someone perfected it." He paused and looked Remus in this eyes, "_This_ someone perfected it." He pointed down at the paper in front of him and pushed it towards Remus. "Now tell me about this."

* * *

Sirius didn't understand. He knew her parents were dead. He'd known that from the beginning. It was practically part of their introduction, but it went more without saying than that. He looked at her but before he could say he knew that, she went on, "My parents died," she heaved a large sigh, "because of that killer."

The words flew out of her mouth and as the last word left her lips, her hand flew up to her mouth, and a surprised screech escaped from her throat. Sirius stared at her, his expression blank as the revelation began to process in his head.

He watched as her knees instantly buckled out from under her and she collapsed at his feet, sobbing uncontrollably. In a panic he looked around someone to help him but there was no one in sight. As his eyes scanned his surroundings repeating in a turmoil of unclear noise: _My parents died because of that killer._

He looked back down at her. Her brown hair was falling in her face in a way that prevented him from seeing it. The sound of her cries sounded almost more painful than Remus' during his change, which only seemed to add to his worry of not knowing what he should do.

Sirius looked back up at the stars, _What do I do? _He closed his eyes only to hear the dreaded words she'd uttered and looked back down at her. Then before he could think it though he kneeled down on the damp ground.

He reached out his hand and pulled her hair out of her face, forcing her to look at him. When her eyes met his he attempted to smile at her, which only seemed to make her eyes grow redder and more tears to fall over the brim of her eyes.

He stared at her for a long while as she stared back before his mind left him and he hugged her. He half expected her to push him away but instead she returned the gesture and continued to sob into his shoulder.

Sirius said nothing as he held her, unable to think of anything that sounded right, considering the depth of despair the situation handled and the time that had passed. His mind reeled, shocked that their research topic had done this. He was shocked that it involved Remus, yet again. But more than ever, was completely torn between simply comforting her and asking her questions on the matter.

"I miss them."

Sirius was slightly startled by the intrusion on his thoughts. He felt her pull away. He could still hear her sobs and was now aware that his shoulder was wet with her tears. He watched as she pulled away, keenly aware of how awkward he felt now that she was speaking. Yet still, he kept his eyes on her.

"I barely remember them." She wiped away her tears but it didn't do much good because more followed her proclamation, "I mean I was four."

Sirius stared at her. His mind quickly clicked into place, browsing though the hidden vaults before it finally settled, "You were four?"

She stared at him with her bloodshot eyes as if shocked to find him sitting before her, "Yeah."

"But that means-"

She nodded as she blinked back tears she was willing not to fall. "That it was the same year Remus was bitten." Sirius was quiet. "I think the world is specially designed so that if one thing goes wrong, twenty other things go at the same time."

Sirius stared at her, listening to her words; he almost had to remind himself that she was younger than him.

Still she continued like a flood gate had opened in her mouth and all the contents had to come out. "It even happened during the same time. Obviously, I was at Lupin Lodge visiting because my parents were going somewhere, I still don't know where. I'm the one that made Remus go outside; I'm the one that made Remus a werewolf. And sometimes I think that that's the reason my parents were taken away."

Upon those words Sirius shook his head, "That's not true and you know it. You had nothing to do with that. If I had that logic, my father hits me sometimes because I- well, I don't know what- but did something daft." He scrunched up his face silently wishing he'd kept his mouth shut. "I guess." He finished lamely.

Kara feigned a smile, "I guess."

"It's true." He stated mildly defeated by his lack of having anything intelligent to say.

They fell silent.

Sirius stared at her waiting for her to get up off the ground to signal that he could stop being sensitive. Then she moved slightly giving him some hope that this moment was over before: "I still remember the Aurors coming to the door, and Uncle Edmund crying saying that it wasn't enough for his son to be taken away? (Because at the time the medi-witches said there was a twenty percent chance that he'd survive.) And Aunt Gwen taking the bags that the Auror handed her. _My_ parents' bags." Her breath shuddered as she held back even more tears.

Sirius stayed silent and placed his hand on her shoulder as a way to tell her that it was okay. She looked at him quickly before looked away, and went on, "I remember Aunt Gwen unpacking the bags the next night. The way she unfolded the clothes, and handled the toiletries. So gentle. I watched her for a long while before she finally realized I was watching her." Kara then looked him directly into Sirius' grey eyes.

"She let me go in and sit on the bed next to her. She'd been crying but I stayed put and just stared at the objects. The belongings that were in a separate bag that had been found on my parents bodies. I didn't know that at the time, I was too young. The only thing I understood was that they were never coming back. That when they told me they'd be back before Christmas, they had lied."

Sirius just stared at her as she seemed to be figuring out what next to say. His hand was still on her shoulder and he merely squeezed it in reassurance. He had nothing to say. Jokes wouldn't work and everything else seemed dumb.

"It's funny through, the one thing I remember the most was that my mom's handkerchief was missing from the pile of stuff that was dropped off. Out of everything, that was the only thing missing."

Sirius just stared at her before his mouth got ahead of his brain. "Wait, so you're saying they were killed because of a hanky?" He stopped himself from laughing, "That's retarded, Kara."

Through her sorrow she still made time to glare at him, "Not if you think about it."

Sirius' brow cocked upward, "Right."

"Let me finish!"

Sirius held up his hands, "Okay."

"The handkerchief was an antique-"

"So lots of people carry around old junk."

She glared at him again, "It was hand made and had the letters R.R. embroidered in the corner in a really elegant style. My mum carried it everywhere with her. It was her most prized possession."

Sirius' eyes grew wide as comprehension dawned on him, "Rowena Ravenclaw," he paused, "you're the last descendant."

Kara nodded and turned a slight shade of red, "I think that's why," her eyes teared up a bit but this time she managed to hold them in, "why they died. I still don't understand the handkerchief, and I probably never will. It might not have any significance at all."

"Maybe," was all Sirius could say.

Then in an abrupt motion, Kara stood up and wiped her eyes. Sirius watched from the ground as she looked over the grounds. He stood up a moment later not knowing what else he could do for her.

"Well, I guess that's it for visiting Hagrid, then." She announced breaking the tension that was building between the two of them.

Sirius simply shrugged his shoulders, "I guess," he stated awkwardly.

He then turned towards the castle entrance. He took only a few steps before he heard her speak once more, "Sirius," he turned around, "don't tell anyone about this."

"I won't," he then turned back around.

"_Anyone_, Sirius!"

He simply held his hand up to tell her that he understood and walked into the castle.

* * *

Remus took a deep breath as he finished his tale. He looked directly at James who appeared to be processing the information, just delivered to him, over and over. Peter, too, was staring at him, but his face seemed more blank than James', which made it hard for him to tell if he had even understood at all. He felt his face grow flush under the pressure of their glances before he finally looked away.

"So that's it then." James said finally.

Remus felt his brow cock upward at the sound of defeat in James' voice. He hadn't expected that. Actually, out of all the options his brain had played out, taking charge and finding out for certain what the hell this chap was up to was the one Remus had been banking on.

"We were looking for a grand murdering nose wipe stealer?" Peter stated quizzically without hiding the obvious amusement in his voice.

Both Remus and James looked at him, though neither of them appeared to see the humor in it.

"No, Pete, we were looking for the bloke that killed Remus' Aunt and Uncle." he looked down at the paper in disgust, "And, unfortunately, we're never going to find him."

James then took up the separate stacks of Daily Prophet's and walked over to the filing cabinet and dropped them inside with a grand 'thud.' When he came back to the table the other two were standing with their things collected. Remus' mind was reeling. This wasn't like James.

They headed out of the library to their common room. As they passed the armor on the third floor, Remus stopped suddenly. James and Peter continued on for a few steps before they realized that Remus was no longer at their side.

"What's wrong?" James asked when he turned around.

Remus merely glanced at him before he answered, "This whole thing." he felt his brow furrow as he contemplated his next words, "I don't think we should throw the towel in on this one."

"Remus, the answer isn't in the library. We've failed."

Remus shook his head, "So. That hasn't ever stopped us before. Look at all the things we've done to Snape. Some take more time than others, but we stick to it." Remus paused before he looked James directly in the face. When he saw a smirk that matched one of Sirius' best he was silently urged to continue.

"And I for one am not going to let this guy get away with killing my family. We'll find out who he is-"

"I don't think he's going to stay in the closet much longer, anyway. And how exactly are we going to stop him when we do find out?"

Remus continued, ignoring Peter's comment, "And you know why, James?"

James nodded slightly at the question but said nothing. Still, Remus continued, "Because Lily's right. We are marauders; and a marauder never quits."

James' smirk instantly became a huge grin upon hearing those words, "All right then. We won't give up."

Remus smiled as they rounded the corner, once again in route to their common room.

"Now, let's just find, Sirius. Lord only knows what he's gotten himself into."

* * *

The rest of the term flew by in a blur of continuous motion. Having to find another outlet for their energy they managed to run amuck in between studying for their finals which, according to Sirius, should have never been instated in the first place.

Overall, though, they found that there would have been little time for research with or without finding the new developments. Being so swept with studying Remus found that the actual exams were a blessing rather than a hindrance. And, before long the end of term feast was upon them.

The actual feast was nothing special. The only real announcement that they were going to heed was that Professor Pike would be leaving them come next term. This announcement was met with cheers from the Slytherins.

"Do they know no shame?" Remus stated appalled by the outburst.

The others merely looked at him.

"No," Sirius stated simply. He looked up to the front of the room where Pike was standing with his typical smile planted firmly on his face, "It's a real shame though, I was actually starting to like the guy."

Remus smiled and resisted the sudden urge to roll his eyes.

* * *

It wasn't long then, before they boarded the train and headed home. The four boys had found a compartment to themselves and occupied their time with the snacks from the treat trolley coupled with the few pranks they had left over from the beginning of the year.

They were nearly at Kings Cross when Kara and Alexial traipsed in with their luggage behind them.

"You can't be in here." Sirius stated firmly.

Kara smirked, "Oh, is that right?" She said in an oh-to-friendly tone before she looked over at Alexial and smiled. They smirked slightly to each other before they both picked a side and shoved their bodies so that they would fit into the seats.

"Oh, dear god!" Remus exclaimed, only to hear James giggle loudly in his ear.

Alexial and Kara let out matching chuckles as the train stopped with a slight jerk. When the train had come to a complete stop they stood up, grabbed their things, and filed off of the train.

When they stepped onto the platform, Peter took off instantly to his parents, barely taking the time to utter a goodbye. Sirius and Remus said "toodles" to James, who was under strict orders not to waist time on the platform with his mates, for his father had an "important meeting" in a half hour.

When he had finally gone, Sirius turned to Remus and said nothing, he simply took it upon himself to hug him. Remus' reaction was slow to say the least, this was very unlike Sirius, but eventually, his body caught up with his brain. When Sirius broke the hug, almost as abruptly as it had started, he smiled and looked over Remus' shoulder, "Alexial, don't you have to get to your parents?"

"No, she's staying with us for awhile." Kara answered.

Remus saw Sirius' brow cock upward, before he met his eyes once again, "Well, then, take these," he then shoved the bag of leftover prank supplies into his hand, "That should make for a good time." He smirked, "You better do a Marauder proud now.

See ya, mate," with that he turned around to meet his fate for the rest of the summer.

Remus smiled at him as he left, before he, too, turned around to meet up with his family and head home for what was destined to be an adventurous summer.

* * *

That's all folks. Well at least for this one. I have the next Story all in order well at least the first chapter I just have to get my lazy butt to type it up. Yeah... it should be up soon within the next week fingers crossed. And it'll be called "Rules to Marauding; _throw 'em out the window_..."

Now I'd like to thank everyone for reviewing and I really hope you liked this one. Yeah Thanks (Sorry for not listing names this time I'm just... lazy) Love you all hope you continue to read my stuff.


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